Academy Of Ideas

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Saturday 19 October at Church House, Westminster. ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION Smartphones have become almost ubiquitous in modern society. The rise of social-media services, which have billions of users worldwide, has gone hand in hand with the use of smartphones. Few technologies have seen such rapid adoption. With concerns about several social problems coming to the fore in recent years, a variety of commentators have pointed to this new technology as an important cause. But in this case, does correlation really equal causation? One problem is how we discuss social and political issues. Social media has democratised political debate. But that debate seems increasingly polarised and toxic, with social media being blamed by many for the summer riots in the UK and Elon Musk being the target of hatred from some for his relatively liberal approach to posts on X/Twitter. The rise of AI, particularly the ease of making ‘deep fakes’, has complicated matters further, making