What empathy? The Titanic, a lost sub, and wealthy explorers—it's too good a story. KEY POINTS Disasters capture attention but stories keep us coming back. The Titan incident had all the elements of a blockbuster movie, it was too much for social media to resist. Social media is attention-driven and rewards extreme content and conspiracy theories. Continued speculation perpetuates the increasingly archetypal narrative, independent of actual facts. The Titan submergible went missing on its way to take five people to see the wreckage of the Titanic. The navy reports it suffered a ‘catastrophic implosion,’ and the five passengers are [...]

Social media bans ignore the need for digital literacy and self-regulation KEY POINTS Proposed legal bans on social media for kids are based on moral panics, not research. The preoccupation with social media use ignores the needed skills to safely navigate the digital world. Not only will the laws be difficult to enforce but verification proposals raise serious privacy issues for sensitive information. Lawmakers could help kids more by funding digital literacy programs. Politicians can't get their pens out fast enough to draft laws to regulate social media use by kids. Advertised as "child protection" laws, the proposed bans [...]