Editorial January 27, 2020 Issue

The “influencer” our world most needs today

Tony Lobl

Nowadays, instead of old-style media celebrities getting all the attention, many people have become well-known “influencers” simply by cultivating an online presence.

Some of this influence is beneficial. Yet our online time can also be very distracting, or worse still, a corrosive influence. Some troubling social media feeds encourage vulnerable people to contemplate self-harm and even suicide, while other feeds are run by repressive foreign regimes working to undermine trust in democratic institutions.

Of course, negative influences aren’t new. As a New Yorker piece recently pointed out, “Influence was worrisome long before it was digital” (Laurence Scott, “A History of the Influencer, from Shakespeare to Instagram,” April 21, 2019).

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