"good" and "bad" aren't objective or quantifiable, so there can't be scientific evidence that social media is either.
And the definition of social media is broad. I would argue Signal is social media. It lets you form social networks, chat and share different kinds of media. That's all social media is. Social media is more than Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. And I have trouble with the argument that being able to form social networks and share different kind of media is somehow ontologically evil. There are hundreds of social media platforms around the world and countless apps integrating social features, but only a few American platforms seem to be a problem. So maybe it isn't "social media," maybe it's American culture and Silicon Valley capitalism.
The addiction loops, surveillance, data mining, radicalization through algorithms promoting extremist content, etc. aren't fundamental to what social media is, they're aspects of how specific social media platforms have been implemented. It is possible to have social media without all of those negative externalities.
And the definition of social media is broad. I would argue Signal is social media. It lets you form social networks, chat and share different kinds of media. That's all social media is. Social media is more than Twitter, Facebook and TikTok. And I have trouble with the argument that being able to form social networks and share different kind of media is somehow ontologically evil. There are hundreds of social media platforms around the world and countless apps integrating social features, but only a few American platforms seem to be a problem. So maybe it isn't "social media," maybe it's American culture and Silicon Valley capitalism.
The addiction loops, surveillance, data mining, radicalization through algorithms promoting extremist content, etc. aren't fundamental to what social media is, they're aspects of how specific social media platforms have been implemented. It is possible to have social media without all of those negative externalities.