In the United States, a person spends up to five hours per day gazing at a smart-phone (Duarte 2025). Similar values are found for other countries such as Ghana, South Africa, Brazil, China, and so on. In fact, some see such behavior as addictive and are therefore banning the use of smart-phones in schools (Panchal and Zitter 2024).

It is well understood that algorithms are tweaked by companies such as Tik Tok to enhance viewing time. To get a clear understanding of what such algorithms can do it is instructive to assess the recent behavior of the US President, Donald Trump, who has his own social media network, Truth Social, and who communicates to the world using this platform, a platform that is also regulated by an algorithm. Trump recently announced vis-à-vis Truth Social that he had dropped bombs on Iran: “[a] full payload of BOMBS was dropped on the primary site, Fordow.”

In fact, Trump routinely uses Truth Social to announce his policies, which are often not even vetted by his advisors. This behavior has created a perverse feedback loop between Trump’s messaging and his ability to bring his announced expectations to fruition. Trump and his followers (including us) are caught in a masturbation-loop, which is deeply addictive (Amirthalingam and Khera 2024). If one tracks Trump’s performance, one comes up with a long list of unfulfilled promises: the US has yet to complete its border wall with Mexico and with Mexican support, the US never invaded Canada, Greenland, and Panama, Iran still has the capability to build a bomb, the Gaza strip has not been cleared of its people, the Ukraine war rages on, the deportation of 1,200 people per day has not been realized, the tariffs against China have been reduced rather than increased, the tariffs proposed for other countries are always being delayed, and the release of the Epstein files has been postponed since Trump’s name might be in the files. In short, Trump is being driven by his own algorithm on Truth Social.

Conclusion: If you do not want your children to grow up to be total failures in life, then make sure you regulate screen time on their smart-phones so that they do not succumb to the same masturbation-loop that is currently transfixing the President of the United States.