Cognitive stagnation and implications for societies and politics in general

Almost no one in our connected world is alien to the ideas of social media addiction, fake news and the nightmares that are most probably coming to life in front of our very own eyes. Researches shared by both mainstream and other popular media outlets have provided enough evidence and convinced us of the Orwellian future that’s about to unfold. But its rarely mentioned so as to how does an addiction lead to a state of real Fascism and its implications for politics, both internal and global. This we shall try looking into.
But firstly, we shall establish that societies are, in fact, in real decline.
Are we really in cognitive decline?
A simple google search shall provide enough research publications on the issue of smart phone addiction leading to a decline in attention spans, increase in anxiety, depression and restlessness levels. There are 3 steps our brains follows for proper cognition. Attention, memory, recall. If they are affected negatively, then we can state the decline correct.
Attention and encoding. Abundance of choices(Netflix, YouTube Videos etc.) results in the choice dilemma and the Fear Of Missing Out(FOMO). Leading to the reduction of attention span. A nice article for reference here. Even questioning voices such as here, here and here do not count in various professions like that of a farmer, student etc. but still agree to the dilemma people face and what most probably drives them for non focusing.
Memory encoding. Storage in the brain is adversely affected as showed by this and this .
Recall. We can recall only what we’ve stored. A good read on this is present here and here.
For the sake of being precise no details have been mentioned but a thorough read of the above shall be convincing enough to learn the true impact of social media.
Social impacts of the above factors on the individual.
Apart from the above studies focused on the brain, supporting studies which explain factors leading to anxiety, depression, self esteem  in people showcase the growing number of desperate, insecure and damaged individuals(especially teens) in our society.
Connecting the cases with the current scenario
The obvious implications of reduced brain functioning compounded with incomplete information from all sorts of media results in an anxious, insecure individual uncertain about his/her future, living in forced mental world of doom and dystopia and thus treads only on getting more dopamine hits unknowingly, is very frightening and saddening.
This results in fragmentation in the official narrative or ideology of the nation and society as a whole, creating a void. As an example, modern day western European societies while drenching in political correctness and moral policing rule out and silence god fearing individuals and sections of society and as this grows, so does the void which was earlier filled by national values and even before, Christianity. Canada’s Prime Minister Mr. Justin Trudeau declaring Canada a ‘post national’ country has declared that nothing except this void exists.
And SOMETHING has to be there to fill the void.
What fills the void?
Anything that predicates upon these same new founded values and can at least be provide an immediate sense of relief. And thus the collective actions are motivated accordingly followed by the political actions being motivated by the same.
Popular examples include rise of Antifa, London’s anti Trump rallies, far right activism, nationalism, anti immigrant narratives,  in many countries are a direct reaction of the new founded or discovered values by the masses stemming from their insecurity or things discussed above.
BUT the real consequence?
If the society and its elements stay course on the same path and stay connected on these newly discovered collective interests, whatever power they choose bring in will definitely at all times be superior to them because their own insecurities etc. brought it in power thus giving an upper hand for unregulated activities. Compound this with the ever swayed and polarised media feeding only to-be-made-popular opinion in place of putting up plain facts, the food supply to these insecurities increases ultimately consuming the masses to give in their rights and controls to their elected rulers.
Potential examples? Any nation state closing in to become a dictatorship or a surveillance state. Be it Mr. Bolsonaro in Brazil, Mr. Modi in India among others.