An old apocryphal story told how Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin one day called in his most trusted advisers and told them to invent something that would slow down the productivity advances in the U.S. Stalin's orders were: Invent a new machine that would cut American productivity by one third. After two years, his advisers came up with a miracle machine that would absorb as much as eight hours a day of the time of the American people: television. And to make sure it would rivet the attention of male breadwinners, the new machine would be programmed with sports, especially pro football and pro baseball.

This old apocryphal story needs to be updated to give credit to some other enemy of the US credit for the internet and social media.