Some Americans are now expressing concern about Big Tech posing a major threat to the U.S., according to recent polling.
A Gallup poll released on Jan. 15 found that nearly a third (32%) of Americans view Big Tech as the biggest future threat to the country, compared with 45% who said the same about big government and only 20% who selected big business. Analysts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that perceived threats from big technology companies may be on the rise in America due to increased concerns over the potentially harmful impacts of using social media apps and artificial intelligence (AI) programs.
“One [concern] is the high-profile harm to children, both from social media and now AI chatbots,” Daniel Cochrane, senior research associate at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Technology and the Human Person, told the DCNF. “With social media, you have so many examples of young children being shown toxic, harmful content … On the AI side, of course, you have these chatbots that are engaging in sensual conversations with minors, [such as conversations] of a sexual nature.”
“ You also have examples of chatbots coaching kids how to kill themselves … and then you have, in addition to that, concerns about how AI is going to affect jobs in the larger economy,” Cochrane continued. “I think that’s the most unclear in terms of what the long term effects will be. But there’s certainly a lot of anxiety about it, and there’s definitely gonna be a transition period. So with all of those things taken together, what you’re seeing is that the American people are viewing tech as more of a bread and butter issue in that it’s something that’s affecting their daily lives.”
“ It’s affecting the daily lives of their children and it’s something that they see as a threat to human flourishing here in the U.S.,” he emphasized.
A chatbot is a computer program that can simulate human conversation, with some, but not all, relying on AI, accordingto IBM. Some states have recently begun enacting laws aiming to stop AI-powered chatbots from providing mental health advice to young users, amid a growing number of reports that some children committed self-harm after attempting to use such programs for therapy, Stateline reported on Jan. 15.
Moreover, one potential harmful impact from Big Tech’s growing influence in the U.S. is the usage of social media apps drastically lowering users’ attention spans, Joel Thayer, a D.C.-based tech and telecom lawyer, explained to the DCNF.
“The tech industry has consolidated all the digital markets to the point where we rely almost exclusively on one of about four companies at any one time, and worse is that their products are geared towards your attention,” Thayer said. “The more attention you can get from your user, the better off you are. So the question is how do you manifest and manufacture environments that force eyeballs onto your device or app or whatever service you have? And that’s where you’re starting to see some of the tactics play out more in a widespread manner, where, you know, kids are getting addicted to their phones. You have adults who are getting literal panic attacks if their phone goes missing for, like, 20 minutes.”
“It’s completely changed how we think about the world, how we engage with other people and how we even talk to other people,” he continued. “I mean, it’s not even that you’re just addicted. You look across the board, I mean, literacy rates are going down because people are relying on these short-form, like, snippets of information. Attention spans for reading are going down because you want the information very fast and quick and move on to the next thing.”
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in October 2025 found that children aged 9 to 13 who experienced increasing exposure to social media received lower scores on reading, memory and vocabulary tests than their peers who had limited or no social media usage, Education Week reported.
Thayer also predicted the prevalence of short-form video content being promoted on social media platforms may be further eroding Americans’ attention spans.
“[With] the introduction of short-form video, I think there’s gonna be more data to support coming down the pike, that the short-form videos have actually decreased our ability to sit down with subject art and think through problems in a more deep way, because we want the information so quick and so rapid … I think you’re seeing the effects that it’s having on kids in schools to the point where state legislators literally have to ban devices just to get kids to pay attention.” Thayer said. “I mean, this is a serious problem, so I kind of think that this is just an acknowledgement of something that is so obvious, and the problem that you have is that these tech companies have such a large and immersive PR campaign to make you feel like your life is better with them that we’ve been gaslit to believe it to be true.”
“It’s getting to the point now where the tech industry is in the midst of an emperor has no clothes situation, where we have to look at these companies and say, ‘Are these actually good for us?’ And we have to stop making excuses and justifications as to why they are,” Thayer continued. “Because they are almost undoubtedly not.”
Some members of Congress have raised concerns about Big Tech in recent years. Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley asserted in a Dec. 9, 2025 X post that his Senate colleagues should “put safety over profit and protect kids online.”
Still, the recent Gallup data indicates that more Americans are concerned about facing potential future harms from “big government” rather than big tech, according to Jennifer Huddleston, senior fellow in technology policy at the Cato Institute.
“While recent polling shows that just over 1 in 3 Americans are worried about the threat of ‘big business,’ a significantly larger number (nearly 6 in 10) are concerned about the threat of big government,” Huddleston told the DCNF.
“Even when separated, big government still ranks as a bigger concern than big tech,” she added. “The concerns are also likely to vary among different consumers, making this a solution for individuals and new entrants to potentially solve, rather than a top-down approach … We should resist the urge to trade one set of concerns for another and avoid increased government intervention in innovation or speech.”
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