---
title: "Symptoms"
description: "The documented harms of attention-optimised platforms — from the 1990s to today."
url: https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/
lang: en
updated: 2026-10-25
license: "CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)"
---

Symptoms

# The harms were not unforeseen. They were foreseen, documented, and for years not acted on.

Most of the harms here were flagged — in academic research, intergovernmental bodies, and internal platform documents — years before they became politically visible. The story starts in the 1990s.

[**Consumerism** Consumerism was always with us. The machine made it frictionless, continuous, and personalised. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/consumerism/)[**Xenophobia & Violence** From Stormfront (1995) to Myanmar (2017) to today. The infrastructure for hate predates social media by a decade. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/xenophobia/)[**Health Misinformation** The feed cannot tell a remedy from a rumour — only what holds attention. From the retracted MMR study to the COVID infodemic. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/health-misinformation/)[**Mental Health** The correlation between social media use and adolescent mental health is established. Causality is contested. The Haugen documents show internal knowledge of harm. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/mental-health/)[**Body Image** An old pressure, newly industrialised — idealised beauty and girls’ self-esteem, and the looksmaxxing-to-bonesmashing pipeline among boys. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/body-image/)[**Get-Rich-Quick & Scams** The oldest pitch in the world — fast, easy, certain money — made personal, socially endorsed, and one tap from your bank account. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/get-rich-quick/)[**Elections & Democratic Harm** Documented influence operations, algorithmic amplification of disinformation, and the ODNI/FBI/CISA joint statement. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/elections/)[**The Manosphere** A worldview that attributes male difficulties primarily to women and feminism, reached one recommended step at a time, on platforms that reward whatever holds attention. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/manosphere/)[**Radicalisation Pipelines** The same engagement machine sits behind movements that hate each other — Islamist, far-right, and incel. The beliefs differ; the mechanics are identical. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/radicalisation/)[**Recruited to Harm** Police in Europe and the US report that organised online networks use game-like tasks to draw children into harming themselves and others. ](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/recruited-to-harm/)[**What We Don't Yet Know** Every factual claim on this site links to its source. This page is about the questions that aren't answered yet — and why that matters.](https://attentionmachine.org/en/symptoms/unknown/)

[Yes, but… — the objections to these claims, answered →](https://attentionmachine.org/en/objections/)

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