All cultural creations have the ability to influence our character. Maybe the difference (and this is probably true in all periods of rapid technological and cultural change) is that the pace of information flow into our brains is so great, and algorithmically tweaked to make it so emotionally appealing, that we are unusually susceptible to having our normal reflective capacities overwhelmed and hijacked by external actors, whether human or machine.

What we need to do is slow that process down so that we have the time and focus to really contemplate what we're ingesting, how we feel about it, and what relevance it ought to have in shaping our character.