> completely coherent position to dislike and distrust a platform, and still use it daily because that's where your friends are.

The only issue is the article makes it sound that your friends also dislike and distrust those same places. If that were true, it begs the question why are "all the teens" using it then? OR, alternatively, the survey and reporting conclusion is (somewhat) wrong or missing nuance.

Network effects, lack of alternatives, and the difficulty of collective action are fully sufficient to explain this.

There is an alternative - group text messaging

Group text messaging serves a different function than Tiktok or YouTube - surely you know this?

Or are you referring to Facebook in this thread while strawmanning another user regarding it in another thread?

Do you realize your link points out that only 33% of teens use social media, down from 71% in 2015?

So what “function” does it serve being on YouTube and TikTok when you need to interact with your friends?

I don't really understand this question. TikTok allows you to post and view videos your friends can see. Beyond that, it's a form of creation.

YouTube contains lots of human knowledge, because that's where many creators have decided to post their videos. I can't choose an alternative.

>If that were true, it begs the question why are "all the teens" using it then?

It's an attractor. The more people who are on a social media platform, the more value you can get from joining it yourself. Thus, you're more likely to join and then you joining makes the next person to come along also more likely to join.

> It is a completely coherent position to dislike and distrust a platform, and still use it daily because that's where your friends are.

This is almost everyone on FB...

I've realized that I'm not really on Facebook for friends the way I used to be anymore. I'm there for Messenger, Marketplace, and sometimes a Group if my neighborhood, team, etc. has decided to use Facebook.

Which then made me wonder: is there truly no good social messenger that's separate from social media now? Signal was the closest I could come up with, but it's missing lots of niceties especially in group messages.

Personally I haven't used FB messenger for years now because WhatsApp and Signal serve my use case. When people messaged me on FB I immediately switched to e-mail or some other messenger. I haven't used FB marketplace, but I'm pretty sure that is something that does not require social media at all.

The one thing that I don't see a good replacement for at the moment is event management because it inherently requires visibility to many people. As a musician I have been advertizing by events on FB (together with good ol' newsletters). Conversely, I have found out about many cool local events I would have missed otherwise. I'm using past tense because I have deactivated my FB since. (Meta sucking up to Trump broke the last straw for me.)

Signal is the best I've found too - I'm reticent to use WhatsApp as it's another Meta product.

While an online marketplace doesn't require social media (see Craigslist), like events, you're missing out on a large population of potential sellers/buyers if you're not on Facebook.