• by Steven Rosenbaum , Featured Contributor, May 6, 2024

Sitting in the third row at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, I was expecting Jeff Daniels to talk about his new Netflix series, “A Man in Full.” And while Daniels did pitch the show, talking with MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace, he also had something on his mind that I’d never heard him say before: “Social media is poison.” (Watch here.)

Daniels explained: “I don’t think social media is helping at all. I think people get addicted to it. I think it’s a drug. I’m off it, and I’m not being noble. I can’t deal with it.”

Daniels, who starred as prime-time news anchor Will McAvoy on the Aaron Sorkin HBO series “The Newsroom,” has strong feelings about the state of American discourse. “Outrage is the new way to converse, and you say something to see how many likes and re-tweets you get. You’re in your silo of news. You’re seeing only what you want to see, and people who agree with you, and let’s get more outraged than we were yesterday.”

Daniels is famous for a speech he gave on “The Newsroom,” which he reprised in part for the 92st Y audience: “The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”

And so, when he turned to news, the fictional newsman had some real-world opinions. “Social media,  I don’t think that’s helping at all. It used to be, way back to Cronkite and all those guys, they just laid out what happened. Then you’d sit around and talk about it -- or your parents would, anyway -- and try to have an opinion about it.”

It turns out a growing group of Hollywood celebrities are speaking out about the impact of social media.

Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival, actor and singer Selena Gomez said, “I would say for my generation, specifically, social media has really been terrible. It does scare me when you see how exposed these young boys and young girls are. They are not aware of the news. I think it’s dangerous for sure. I don’t think people are getting the right information sometimes.”

Singer Billie Eilish agrees. On the podcast “Female Quotient” she said, “Social media is ass, it’s trash. The internet is the worst. That place is poison. Nobody does anything real anymore.”

Actor and comedian Kevin Hart is flat-out angry. “Social media has mind-fucked people into thinking that it’s what the world thinks. The insecurity levels have risen to an all-time high,” said Hart on "The Joe Rogan Experience" podcast. "We now think this is the way of the world. The negative is SO LOUD you don’t even see the positive.”

Actor Kate Winslet is concerned about young women: “Social media has a huge impact on young women’s self-esteem because all they ever do is design themselves for people to like them. And what comes along with that? Eating disorders. And that makes my blood boil,” Winslet told The Sunday Times.

Actor Timothée Chalamet got real: “To be young now is to be intensely judged. I can’t imagine what it is to grow up with the onslaught of social media. I think it’s hard to be alive now,” he said during a Venice Film Festival press conference.

Singer Harry Styles goes further: “There’s also a lot that I find super dangerous about social media. On a personal level, I feel a noticeable change in how happy I am when I’m not on social media,” said Styles during an interview with i-D magazine.

Hollywood celebs are increasingly vocal about social media's impact.  They advocate for the protection of young users and raise awareness about the negative effects of excessive social media use, aiming to foster a healthier online environment for both teens and for themselves.