Kate Hawkesby: There's nothing 'social' about Facebook

Sit with a room full of teenagers and ask yourself how much engagement and connection is going on. None. It's all heads bowed staring at screens, clicking, liking, and swiping.

I see that billionaire philanthropist George Soros made a splash at the World Economic Forum in Davos the other day, by basically saying Facebook and Google are doomed. He claimed the tech giants were monopolies that harm individuals and democracy.

Big call George. But is it true?

Well I doubt many would argue against further regulations for these powerhouses, and the European Union is doing that... and probably not before time. But will it go far enough? And will it get to where it needs to go? And more importantly, how effective will it be?

You see George comes from a time where you could exist without Google and Facebook. Indeed George was born in a time where radio was only just becoming commercially accessible.

Ask a millennial how they'd cope without Facebook or Google and they look back at you like you've grown two heads. But the players themselves are aware that the times they are a 'changing.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg recently admitted that social media can sometimes harm democracy. He also announced changes to the Facebook algorithm in a bid to reduce the flood of biased news content created by businesses and media outlets. It was an attempt to return to what Facebook was originally intended for: connection, engagement with family and friends - but isn't that the great irony?

The behemoth that is the internet and social media, is anything but... social. Just sit with a room full of teenagers sometime, and ask yourself how much engagement and connection is going on. None. It's all heads bowed staring at screens, clicking, liking, and swiping.

So for all the rhetoric about Facebook being a hot bed of meaningful interaction, it's really just something to be scrolled through, at pace, while you're waiting in the car to pick up the kids.

Are you engaged? Not really. It's more of a distraction. "Oh look, Sue got a new kitten, cute." Hit like. Move on. But back to George's point.

He was referring to the disinformation, the fake news, and the predominantly large amount of advertising filling the spaces on these tech platforms.

This is of course timing-wise, neatly tied into the current backlash against Silicon Valley by those who believe it has a perverse influence on America, and by default, the world.

Soros hopes regulation and taxation will soon dethrone the likes of Facebook and Google, but for generation-tech, the kids and now adults who've grown up with both, will it trickle down to having an effect on them?

Because if you've grown up with something that's so subversively crept its way into your consciousness, can you actually even discriminate any more between fact and fiction?

So unless Soros's wishes that companies like this are regulated out of existence come true (which is unlikely) then is this just more noise?

Because although meritorious, it feels to me like an attempt to close the barn door after the horse's bolted.