Sort of like complaining that romance novels provide an inaccurate model of human relationships... Social media (even YouTube) is mostly intended to entertain.

Sort of like complaining that romance novels provide an inaccurate model of human relationships... Social media (even YouTube) is mostly intended to entertain. If it turns out to be bad at other stuff, well, that just means we have to create systems that are. Super popular web sites are not going to be any more socially constructive than the sort of magazines you find at the checkout aisle of a grocery store. Nothing has really changed here.