Twin Galaxies stopped short of concluding that MAME had produced the scores but still said “we know for certain that an unmodified original [Donkey Kong] arcade [printed circuit board] did not output the display seen in the videotaped score performances.

“From a Twin Galaxies viewpoint, the only important thing to know is whether or not the score performances are from an unmodified original DK arcade PCB as per the competitive rules,” the organization said. “We now believe that they are not from an original unmodified DK arcade PCB, and so our investigation of the tape content ends with that conclusion and assertion.”

If it sounds like a full-time job, that’s because it pretty much is — a gig they’ve aged into by virtue of becoming teenagers in the era of the smartphone. As the three friends laugh and chat with one another, their eyes are nearly always cast downward, glued to the devices held between their manicured fingers. The brands they are managing are their own. They post carefully curated updates and stylized pictures of themselves on various apps and platforms. They swipe left and right, opening and closing apps, gasping about the daily drama playing out on the glowing screen, and planning their next moves. They don’t consider it work — it’s more of a necessary pastime that’s become so routine, “it’s like breathing,” says Elina, who is 17. Often, they won’t even let sleep get in the way.

To a parent or the casual observer, a phone-bored teen may appear engaged. After all, they’re on their phone, which many people consider an inherently engaging activity. In reality, they’re bored out of their mind.

There are very few other contexts in which a person would be be allowed to make a series of decisions that have obviously enriched them while eroding the privacy and well-being of billions of people; to make basically the same apology for those decisions countless times over the space of just 15 years; and then to profess innocence, idealism, and complete independence from the obvious structural incentives that have shaped the whole process. This should ordinarily cause all the other educated, literate, and smart people in the room to break into howls of protest or laughter. Or maybe tears.

In the written remarks that Mark Zuckerberg, the C.E.O. of Facebook, submitted in advance of his testimony on Capitol Hill this week, he used the word “tool” eleven times. “As Facebook has grown, people everywhere have gotten a powerful new tool to stay connected to the people they love, make their voices heard, and build communities and businesses,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We have a responsibility to not just build tools, but to make sure those tools are used for good.” Later, he added, “I don’t want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy.” In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees on Tuesday, Zuckerberg referred to “these tools,” “those tools, “any tool,” “technical tools,” and—thirteen times—“A.I. tools.” On Wednesday, at a separate hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a congressman from Florida told Zuckerberg, “Work on those tools as soon as possible, please.”

What’s in a tool?

Vladimir Nabokov once wrote that reality is one of the few words that means nothing without quotation marks. He was sardonically making a basic point about relative perceptions: When you and I look at the same object, how do you really know that we see the same thing? Still, institutions (media, government, academia) have helped people coalesce around a consensus—rooted in a faith in reason and empiricism—about how to describe the world, albeit a fragile consensus that has been unraveling in recent years. Social media have helped bring on a new era, enabling individuated encounters with the news that confirm biases and sieve out contravening facts. The current president has further hastened the arrival of a world beyond truth, providing the imprimatur of the highest office to falsehood and conspiracy.

But soon this may seem an age of innocence. We’ll shortly live in a world where our eyes routinely deceive us. Put differently, we’re not so far from the collapse of reality.

What’s behind that impulse to delete? When it comes to acts of violence, taking down profiles may help stem the impulse to try and build a logical case for an act where logic played no role. Distancing a platform from a senseless act of violence may be a public relations move, or a matter of taste, or maybe meant to discourage a profile from becoming a shrine for copycats. But the act has rare precedence in less recent history, and even carries negative connotations with non-online examples — say, if no one were allowed to read the Unabomber’s letters.

Looking at the UK chart history, you may be surprised to learn that there is actually not a single year since its release in which “Mr Brightside” has not been in the Top 100. It has charted 166 times and counting. It spent a run of 35 CONSECUTIVE WEEKS (THIRTY-FIVE!!!) there between July 2016 and March 2017. This January, it reached number 49; its highest position in three years. “MR BRIGHTSIDE” WAS LITERALLY A TOP 50 SINGLE in 2017. IT IS STILL IN THE CHARTS AT THIS VERY MOMENT. LET THAT SINK IN FOR A SECOND.