I think the article gets the incentives a little wrong. The primary reason to engage with social media is not to consume useless content. If that's all it was,

I think the article gets the incentives a little wrong. The primary reason to engage with social media is not to consume useless content. If that's all it was, I wouldn't use it. No, the primary reasons are: to improve your professional standing, attract an audience that can be monetized, and learn useful information in your field (which can also be monetized). Or to make it even simpler: money, and power. That changes the perspective on what has value and what is worth saying & doing. For example, "low effort content" obviously has value if that's your goal, since you can spend 10 minutes crafting some tweet about your profession with low reach, or 10s photographing your food for a similar result. If you can type out something low effort than you can squeeze it in during work hours, for example - and building an audience is one example of how that could pay off. Second, if money and power are your goal, then getting very familiar with marketing content is useful also. You have to learn what engages people and what gets people to sign up for stuff, even if its tedious or slightly cheesy. And hanging out on social media is how you do that. Finally, if there are useful professional jewels amid all the chaff, then it may be okay that 95% of it is junk, if 5% of it is good. I will say that there are times when I've sworn off social media, then dipped back and noticed, actually, I do learn useful stuff here. If you want to use social media in a practical way, you can.