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> it was possible to change someone's mood by that. Online content definitely impacts mental health

For approximately 10% of the population, who are considered highly suggestible. For comparison, Fox News had 1.21 percent of the US population as a primetime audience in 2020. One can imagine how that number increases with shared environments of family, friends, peers, and work (in other words, networks).

My mother is a great example. She won’t take tech advice from anyone in our family, but if one of her close friends shares that same information with her, it somehow becomes history—signed, sealed, and delivered. She’s influenced by her peers in a highly suggestible way.

Don’t know what the Twitter numbers are. In the 1960s, Huxley speculated that suggestibility was as high as 20%, and argued that if you controlled 20% of the population, you controlled the whole of society. More recently, that number has come down to 15%. My point remains the same as before.



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