In the age of algorithms, democratic societies face a fundamental question: are we still capable of upholding a genuine vision of social progress — one rooted in effort, responsibility and long-term thinking — or are we now living in a civilisation that treats innovation as an end in itself, regardless of its real value to society?
Over the past thirty years, a quiet yet profound transformation has taken place in Western political discourse. The word progress has almost disappeared from public discourse, replaced by the now ubiquitous term innovation, which, even at the end of the twentieth century, had only a marginal presence in public life.
What has changed is not merely our vocabulary, but the very way we imagine the future.
Towards the end of the twentieth century, the future was still viewed with optimism and a certain innocence. We instinctively imagined a world in which technology would make life simpler, more comfortable and happier. Technological progress was readily equated with human progress. As children, we looked forward to the year 2000 with enthusiasm, convinced that it would usher in better days.
Today, by contrast, our children and young people look towards 2050 not with hope, but with growing anxiety about climate, social and technological uncertainty. We may therefore ask ourselves whether they would feel the same way if we still shared a collective belief in social progress, rather than embracing, almost as an article of faith, the notion that every technological innovation necessarily leads to a better society.
When Innovation Replaces Progress
Progress implies a direction. It presupposes an understanding of the common good, a vision of a better society and benefits that stand the test of time. The very idea of progress also involves accepting a degree of sacrifice in the present: investing time, money and effort, and forgoing immediate rewards in pursuit of future gains — whether in terms of personal fulfilment, the well-being of one's family, the development of society, one's country, science or humanity as a whole.
Innovation, by contrast, is primarily about novelty. By its very nature, it does not necessarily point towards a better society. Its purpose is often neither collective progress nor the long-term public interest, but convenience, commercial appeal, saving time, or eliminating all effort and 'friction' from everyday life. Indeed, it is no coincidence that human laziness is often described as one of the principal drivers of innovation. Something can be innovative without being useful, wise or genuinely contributing to the progress of civilisation.
Today, we often tend to regard something as good simply because it is new, fast and technologically sophisticated. Yet innovation and progress are not synonymous. Most mobile applications are undoubtedly innovative, but how many genuinely contribute to social progress? Today's markets tend to reward products whose commercial value far outweighs their actual contribution to society.
The paradox is all the more striking because the advanced knowledge and exceptional talent underpinning these products are often the result of education funded by generations of taxpayers as an investment in collective progress. It is difficult to claim that our civilisation is advancing when brilliant mathematicians and highly skilled programmers devote their expertise to creating trivial digital filters that superimpose cat whiskers or rabbit ears on people's faces. That may be innovative. But is it really progress?
The Civilisation of the Instant
At the same time, much of public debate has migrated to platforms designed not to encourage deep reflection, but to capture and hold users' attention. It is no coincidence that some of the most profitable digital innovations are precisely those that seek to keep users endlessly scrolling through content, without pause, reflection or conscious choice.
Social media platforms reward speed over reflection, emotion over reasoned argument, and conflict over understanding. In such an environment, credibility is increasingly built not on knowledge and character, but on virality and emotional impact. Algorithms prioritise neither truth nor public value, but content that generates the strongest reactions. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that populism finds such fertile ground in the digital sphere.
Yet democracy is a system in which the majority ultimately has the final say, and its stability depends to a considerable extent on the quality of public debate, the extent to which citizens are informed, and their ability to distinguish reasoned argument from manipulation.
Democracies no longer operate within the information environment we knew just a generation ago. Smartphones have turned billions of individuals into both creators and distributors of content capable of reaching a global audience almost instantaneously. In this environment, speed and emotional impact increasingly take precedence over fact-checking, context and serious argument. A society in which it becomes ever more difficult to distinguish facts from emotional impressions also becomes more vulnerable to political demagoguery. For freedom of choice, when it is no longer accompanied by the ability to distinguish truth from falsehood, can easily become the freedom to embrace illusion.
Democracy was born in a civilisation of slow reading, slow writing and slow reflection. For the first time in its history, it must now survive in a world dominated by instantaneous emotional reactions.
Perhaps never before have we had access to so much information, yet struggled so profoundly to concentrate. With the development of artificial intelligence, the boundary between the real and the virtual, between truth and falsehood, has never been so difficult to discern. Yet democracy can hardly survive in the long term if citizens are no longer able to reliably distinguish facts from a convincing simulation.
Young people today are growing up in a world of constant notifications, short videos and algorithmically personalised content. Many find it increasingly difficult to read lengthy texts, making it harder still to develop sustained attention, the ability to construct reasoned arguments and a thorough understanding of complex issues.
Yet their generation will have to make decisions on issues far more complex than those we have faced: climate change, the energy transition, artificial intelligence, food security, migration pressures, geopolitical instability, resource depletion and even the possible limits of the digital civilisation model itself. Such challenges will require a capacity for rational, long-term thinking that digital culture does less and less to foster.
This is why a growing number of European countries are seriously considering restricting access to social media for children under the age of fifteen or sixteen. What seemed radical until recently has now become a legitimate matter of public policy. Similar debates are gradually emerging in Croatia, where mobile phone use is already prohibited in primary schools and restricted in secondary schools, while further measures to protect children in the digital environment are under consideration. The aim is not to restrict young people's freedom arbitrarily, but to protect their cognitive, emotional and social development, ensuring that they retain the capacity for critical thinking, responsible citizenship and sound judgement in a democratic society.
The driving force behind these proposals is neither technophobia nor nostalgia for the past, but growing concern about the effects of social media on young people's mental health, concentration, emotional development and social skills. We may be witnessing a historical pattern similar to that of tobacco and alcohol: society initially regarded certain habits as harmless, only to recognise their profound consequences much later.
But the real question is not whether technology should be banned. It is whether technology still serves humanity — or whether human beings themselves are gradually becoming raw material for algorithms.
All this is happening at a time when the world is entering a period of profound geopolitical, technological and social upheaval that will demand difficult, long-term political decisions. A civilisation that judges innovation primarily by its commercial appeal rather than its lasting social benefit also risks losing its sense of responsibility towards future generations.
In a world marked by mounting climate pressures and the growing scarcity of natural resources, genuine social progress will depend not only on our ability to create new technologies, but also on the wisdom with which we guide technological development to serve the long-term interests of society and future generations. Yet such decisions cannot be made without public trust, the capacity to think beyond the immediate future, and at least some common understanding of reality.
Democracy Needs Citizens, Not Just Users
Perhaps the greatest problem facing democracy is not that people refuse to hear the truth, but that political and media systems increasingly fail to reward those who speak it. It is far easier to promise immediate comfort than to call for long-term responsibility.
A civilisation that increasingly seeks to eliminate every effort, inconvenience or moment of waiting from everyday life also risks losing the ability to accept difficult, long-term decisions. Yet without discipline, self-control and a willingness to make sacrifices, it is difficult to imagine genuine collective progress.
History shows that societies which cultivate hard work, a sense of responsibility and the ability to delay gratification — whether in post-war Europe, Japan or certain parts of East Asia — often gain a considerable economic and geopolitical advantage. Conversely, societies that surrender to the logic of instant gratification can easily come to believe that stability and prosperity can be maintained without effort or sacrifice. Yet progress almost always requires sacrifice today in the pursuit of a better tomorrow.
Much of contemporary technological culture, however, promises precisely the opposite: immediate gratification without effort.
History offers us some powerful lessons in this regard. At the most critical moment of the Second World War, Winston Churchill did not promise the British people an easy path, isolation behind a wall of illusions or a swift return to comfort. He offered neither 'milk nor honey', but, in his own words, 'blood, toil, tears and sweat' — and the prospect of a long and arduous struggle for victory.
Had the British chosen leaders who promised them only peace, comfort and the avoidance of sacrifice, Europe might look entirely different today. The freedom and democracy we now take for granted might never have prevailed.
But the British chose the harder path — and ultimately secured victory.
The same was true of Croatia in the early 1990s. Croatian freedom and independence were not achieved through comfort or the avoidance of risk, but through the immense sacrifices, courage, sweat and tears of those who were prepared to bear the burden of the struggle for a free and democratic state.
The question, then, is whether modern democratic societies are still capable of heeding these lessons. Are they still prepared to choose the more demanding and responsible path when they know it will lead to a better long-term outcome? Are they still capable of accepting certain sacrifices for the sake of the stability, security and sustainability of future generations? Or have they gradually become societies that want nothing more than 'bread and circuses' — immediate gratification and quick solutions, however unsustainable they may prove in the long run?
This is, in reality, a far deeper civilisational question, one that confronts almost all Western democracies today.
Perhaps it is even one of the defining questions of the twenty-first century: how do we educate generations who, in a digital world, will retain the ability to concentrate, engage in reasoned debate, exercise self-control and think rationally?
This is not merely an educational question. It is a question of democratic resilience. For democracy cannot survive on technology, procedures and the formal freedom to choose alone. It also depends on a particular kind of citizen: someone capable of thinking in the long term, distinguishing truth from manipulation, and accepting that genuine social progress almost always requires effort, responsibility and sacrifice today in order to build a better tomorrow.
This does not mean, however, that technology and democracy are necessarily in conflict. Technology is not, in itself, progress. Progress occurs only when technology makes people freer, more rational, more responsible and more capable of acting together with a long-term purpose.
The real question, therefore, is not whether we need less technology, but what kind of technology we want to develop — and for what kind of society.
A society that loses the ability to distinguish progress from a mere succession of innovations, however entertaining, convenient or profitable they may be, also risks losing its ability to chart its own long-term course as a civilisation.
And if we lose that capacity, we may discover that the greatest threat to democracy comes not from outside, but from the gradual disappearance of those human qualities without which a free society cannot survive: the ability to put effort, responsibility and the long-term common good before immediate comfort.