Social media has downsides but that doesn’t mean it’s useless or has never been useful. It did connect people. There was a time when you lose touch with your high school friends pretty much forever when you move for college and then a different city.

There was a time that cigarettes 'calmed the nerves' as well. Almost universally, nobody thinks social media is a one way street of mostly-positive outcomes.

> nobody thinks social media is a one way street of mostly-positive outcomes.

What is?

That makes no sense whatsoever.

Sure it does. I think there’s a fairly solid argument to be made that social media is a net negative for humanity. It’s “good” for the small group of people who make a lot of money but for most people it’s not a positive. It maybe falls somewhere between alcohol (not great but a lot people enjoy it in moderation) and prescription opioids (predatory and misleading by design).