If they can pull the strings and entice us with nice little digital environments that we can "feel" like we are doing something without leaving out chair... do they not already have us defeated? Are we not lazily acting as though we are going to do something while really we are thinking our words might make someone do something. We are then aware that enough people do something we will likely join in.

I would not speak of "them" and "us". The mentality that one thinks the other has is also part of one's own.

It's not by chance that it's called "feed". The morning ritual of opening one's feed, no matter where, is certainly very widespread. That's where you get your daily kick, inspiration, whatever. Along with the first coffee. At least that's what I do.

From that point of view, none of it really has any meaning, I would say. Feeding yourself with electronic letters or images is simply a peep into the digital world. Like a puppy sniffing and chasing this way and that as butterflies fly up or noises in the bushes, that's what opening the feed in the morning is: letting impressions reach you and reacting to them.

The topics fly around like flakes and depending on which one appears in front of you, you grab it and join in.
You can see the doggedness or seriousness with which people spend their time online when you yourself have taken a break for days or weeks. The urgency it had for oneself weeks ago seems strange and unnecessary, doesn't it? I'm assuming you share this experience?

One day in the physical and beneficial company of people doing something together away from the digital, and you wonder what the hell was so important about the online debates.

Whoever "they" are, it seems to me that "they" also think the digital world is real, and perhaps even more so. "They" are as much hypnotized, I would say.

I stopped asking what "can be done". I think this very question already leads away from the intimate and the familiar, the physical and the friendships in real life. But it would take me too long giving all my thoughts in this comment.