> Recent academic studies suggest that social media is indeed corrosive to trust in governments, news media, and people and institutions in general. The author

> Recent academic studies suggest that social media is indeed corrosive to trust in governments, news media, and people and institutions in general. The author uses the term social media here in this statement without much differentiation. Elsewhere though, he has differentiated “old school” social media from modern “social media.” I think he should have made that more clear here. He expressed earlier that the effects of “old school” social media were pretty benign. I would like to propose that the term social media has become varied and ambiguous enough that it loses its value when introspecting on its modern effect. I’ve personally taken to no longer use the term “social media” and instead try to use variations on “profit media”, “engagement media”, and “highly mechanized.” These better capture (for me) the essence of what most modern supposed “social” platforms are really about.