>If you look at Asian countries as a counterexample, there is no such "intensification" happen because of SN at all. To the contrary, even the house of suckage, FB, is contributing positively, because a lot of people would not go online without FB or other easy ways.

That's hardly an argument in favour of social media. The US is a democracy where people used to have civic debates around a shared reality.

That social media isn't going to ruin the debate climate in corporate-governmental societies where civilians don't have any input anyway doesn't really calm my nerves. In fact it frightens me. If the future of the internet is a cluster of entertainment bubbles with business and government bending reality to their will, and China is an example of the future, I'm not really keen on duplicating it. It's actually a very prescient observation: There seems to be a strong correlation between societies with high technological development but no democratic tradition, and the demise of traditional channels of media in favour of social media.