Panel a: example of a full-disk magnetogram acquired by SDO/HMI. Panel b: FoV considered in the analysis. Magnetic elements were automatically detected and tracked for 2 hours every three days in the period 2011 − 2022. Panel c: mean amplitude of the horizontal oscillations of the magnetic elements in the east-west (x) and north-south (y) directions. The error bars represent the standard error of the mean. Panel d: difference in the amplitude in the two directions. Panel e: sunspot number in the same period, indicating the progression of the solar cycle. The dynamics of small-scale and short-lived magnetic elements in the solar atmosphere is affected by a long-term modulation on timescales that are much longer (years) than their lifetimes (several minutes). These dynamical properties cannot be explained solely by a local driver of the perturbations and indicate the presence of a global scale effect.