Your Attention Please, Sara Robin and Kristin Bride Have Something To Say

The debate over social media and children is at a pivotal moment, and Your Attention Please, a new documentary from director Sara Robin, examines how the attention economy has reshaped childhood, mental health and human connection. The film brings together parents, young advocates, technology critics and whistleblowers, including Frances Haugen, the subject of Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming film The Social Reckoning, and Kristin Bride, a mother who turned a tragic loss into a call to action. The release of Your Attention Please, available to rent or own on Oct. 6 through Apple TV, comes in the wake of the resolution of the landmark multistate case against Meta: in August, Meta agreed to a proposed settlement worth up to $17.1 billion and changes to Instagram and Facebook aimed at reducing risks to young users. The film features the stories of people who have lived with the consequences of a digital world designed to capture attention.

“I was actually quite addicted to my phone even though I had been critical of social media pretty much since its inception,” Robin explains.
“I still got sucked in, and in my case, actually got sucked into Gmail.” With work email constantly at her fingertips, Robin found it increasingly difficult to put her phone down. It followed her to dinner, movies and nearly everywhere else, eventually affecting her sleep, focus and mental health. She began deliberately reducing her screen time and putting her phone away, even when it felt uncomfortable. As others began asking how they could do the same, Robin started wondering whether the solution could extend beyond individual behavior to address the systems that make disconnecting so difficult.

That question became the foundation for the documentary, which premiered at SXSW in March 2026. Robin approaches the subject not simply as an examination of technology but as an exploration of the systems surrounding it. The film asks what happens when technologies designed to connect people are also aggressively optimized to keep them constantly engaged.

At the center of that question is Bride, whose son Carson tragically ended his life after experiencing cyberbullying. “When we lost Carson, I felt like I had a decision to make,” Bride says. “I could go quietly into the night and never speak about it again, and lie in bed and cry all day, or rip off the Band-Aid and go very public with his story in an effort to raise awareness of cyberbullying and these anonymous apps with other families. And that kind of was the path I went.”

Bride became an advocate for changes to the way children interact with technology, including testifying before Congress and working on legislative and cultural reform, including the multistate lawsuit against Meta, alleging that Facebook and Instagram used features designed to encourage compulsive use among children and teens and that Meta misled the public about associated risks. But for Bride, the settlement represents a beginning rather than an endpoint. “We’re just beginning,” Bride says. “The changes that they have to make are small changes compared to many of the dangerous design features that are on these apps. Most importantly, as parent advocates, we want to make sure that the parents and the teens don’t believe that now the products are safe… We will not stop until we see the significant changes that we want.” One of the issues the Bride continues to emphasize is algorithmic recommendation, which presents users with increasingly extreme material because the system has learned what keeps them engaged.  We want kids to be able to look up what they want to look up, and not be fed content just so that they are kept online longer,” Bride says.

The film also looks for solutions to limit toxic content from coming into cyberspace in the first place. One example is ReThink, a technology developed by Trisha Prabhu. In the fall of 2013, Trisha, then just 13 years old, read a shocking news story about a 12-year-old girl who had died by suicide after being cyberbullied for over a year-and-a-half. Prabhu conceived of ReThink, an award-winning, patented technology that aims to detect and stop cyberbullying before the damage is done. The system prompts users to reconsider potentially harmful messages before posting them. Prabhu’s early testing found that 93 percent of young participants changed their minds after receiving the prompt. Now 26, Prabhu is widely recognized as one of the first young, Gen Z voices to rethink our digital status quo — and demand a safer, kinder internet.

That emphasis on solutions ultimately distinguishes Your Attention Please from a straightforward indictment of technology. The film acknowledges that digital tools can connect, educate and empower people even as it examines the consequences of systems built around capturing attention. The central message is not that technology is good or bad but that it’s up to people to reshape the systems governing their relationship with it.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing thoughts of self-harm, immediate, free and confidential support is available 24/7 by calling or texting the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.

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