Your Attention Please @SXSW 2026

There’s probably nothing more devastating than losing your own child to suicide because of cyberbullying. Let alone the thought that you had to bury your own child afterwards. This is one of the stories that brought director Sara Brown to create the most compelling documentary to have premiered at SXSW.

Your Attention Please focuses on a subject that we all need to be concerned about. It is the power of addictive tech that has mothers like Kristin Bride fighting against its harmful and exploitative structures. After losing her 16-year-old son, Carson, to suicide, Kristin has been advocating for better regulation of these apps by forming groups like Parents Rise and the Online Harms Prevention Workgroup. In 2023, she testified against Congress, knowing well that the structure of apps like Snapchat are harmful to children. Kristin Bride has also created a non-profit organization called The Carson Bride Effect to protect kids online. There is no finish to her fight.

Even Frances Haugen, the Facebook Whistleblower, knows how harmful these applications are. She disclosed internal documents to the Wall Street Journal as evidence that apps like Facebook and Instagram harm children. As well as that, it contributes to violence in developing countries. Nowadays, it’s a given that the more negative the Facebook feed is, the more money Mark Zuckerberg makes from all the bad news.

What FERNTV loves about Your Attention Please is that it also paints a portrait of solutions to remove ourselves from addictive tech and to regain autonomy and human connection. One of those leaders to this future is Trisha Prabhu, who is against cyberbullying and better regulation on the internet ever since she was 13. She formulated ReThink, a technology that proactively stops cyberbullying by allowing someone to ReThink what they are going to say online.

Trisha has travelled globally to get her message across and has been a true warrior for righteous internet use. Trisha also leads ReThink’s non-profit spinout, ReThink Citizens, which is working to support a new generation of young digital changemakers in creating the digital world they deserve. She is someone from Gen Z who is looking out for her own and future generations. The way things are now online is not sustainable.

The Offline Club is another example of how we can all get off our phones. Literally. The club, which was founded by Jordy van Bennekom, Valentijn Klok and Ilya Kneppelhout in 2024, allows members to disconnect from their phones and reconnect with other human beings. It is done simply through communicating in physical rooms and physically speaking to each other. Putting away your phones during these events allows and forces people to communicate in the old-fashioned way. These events show how we can still connect physically without feeling anxious.

Much respect goes out to Sara Robin for putting together a documentary that shows that there is still time to regulate our own behaviour when it comes to addictive tech. Many who have looked at this as a subject matter as a losing battle against the tech giants might think twice about that. Director Sara Robin lays so much evidence that advocates for better regulation and the genuine reconnection of the human spirit. The pendulum does have to shift so that we do not lose all control to harmful apps, let alone AI.

It is great that a director like Sara Robin has laid the groundwork to working to a better future where humans can co-exist with technology that is not harmful. We all need to continue that fight and struggle every single day and to keep that balance. Otherwise, the tech giants are just going to keep on winning and taking away lives from those who love them the most. We cannot live in a world where there is no accountability for the loss of a loved one, and this is not the world that we were destined to become. FERNTV says that we need to pay attention to Your Attention Please by clicking on the video below.