What we now call mob mentality or groupthink feels like a modern label for something Jung was already describing decades ago. When individuals become part of a group, something changes. Intellectual rigor declines. Moral restraint weakens. People say and do things they would never do alone.

In the 2020s, platforms stopped selling products and started selling psychology. They learned that attention, not time, was the real commodity. And they learned how to weaponize it with precision: variable rewards, endless content streams, dopamine loops dressed up as “connection.”