A great deal of sucides plus people hurting others by their posts etc. It has not always been good.

Apparently this situation will all get worse. Efforts to get rid of unacceptable media is now going into areas of censorship way beyond what should be allowed. There has to be some censoring because you do not want to advocate killing or murder, or even cause others to react that way unless you have orange skin and hair. Then it appears to be OK and is a fault of "media." I hope that a few will excuse me just a little bit. When I was a child the telephone was a brown wooden box on the wall and your number might be 2 longs and a short ring. You did the number with a crank on the side of the box. Censorship was there too coz the neighbor would listen in when she knew it was your ring. Even in those days we figured out who it was pretty quickly.

I think you have answered your title's question. i don't necessarily agree with your assessment, though. first of all, i am disabled and social media have opened the world up to me, to a huge extent, EVEN to the extent of getting out of the house and interacting more with live people! in addition, i don't use my phone for social media. oddly enough, i use it for phone calls (and taking pictures, i admit, and sometimes i upload the pictures to facebook -- they tend NOT to be of my dinner, though!) social media has not replaced social contact, not for me anyway. i am aware of the monitoring; that sucks but i am not worried about it. there are bigger things about which to worry. meanwhile, i keep my facebook page completely open to the public, so my privacy choice includes allowing anyone i don't actively block to read what i post. i know the monitoring you mention is not mainly about that, but rather following what i visit, what i buy, or at least shop for. that is annoying as i say, but not the end of the world. i know others have experiences that differ from mine -- but surely others have experiences like mine, or unlike mine but different too from your assessment. those who are being manipulated by social media may well be the same people who, without access to (or the existence of) social media would be manipulated by something or someone else.

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When I was growing up credit cards were not common. Luckily, so because my parents fought about money. If it wasn't there it didn't get spent. Later, I lived in Europe which was slow in instilling cc's. When I returned to the US CC's were not on my radar which, I believe helped me manage my money. Same for social media. I did not grow up with it and only use what I want. Where I live cell phone coverage is low so the items you mentioned are not an option per cell phone, only WiFi and computers. I have more important and better things to do with my life than constantly look at a phone. Unfortunately, I am an odd duck in the connected world.

All of these things are just tools.

The problem I think, is that we have not grow in our views, tolerances, and sense of being cosmopolitan enough to take in the different perspectives without drawing divisions. In short, we are 3 back hairs away from being chimps in our relationships with each other, yet have all this technical ability. It's a bad mix.

I choose to see the positive side of it.

Ruined my spelling and makes me think I have a social life when I clearly don’t, and denies me sleep!

It's ruining this country... It's changed everything

I read a statistic the other day that farcebook is cited in 30 % of divorce filings now. Thats up from the 25% it was when my ex screwed a guy she met on there.

I am in the camp of 'net harm' caused by social media. Former Facebook executive, Chamath Palihapitiya's conversation about the medium he helped start is refreshingly blunt. What does it tell you when a guy who became a billionaire from the site he helped start doesn't use it and won't let his children use it either?

I ofen ask people who are involved with their smart phone in a social setting, what they would do if they lost connection with whoever is on the other end. I have yet to receive a sensible answer.

Shared on a social media site....

I believe there are pros and cons but the pros outweigh the cons. It seems to be human nature to consider new innovations negatively. New technologies have created new problems but have also done a tremendous amount of good. I don't think any other resource has made it so easy to obtain so much information and start breaking out of the harmful thought patterns of the past.

Also as always is the tendency to take the struggles a few people are having and projecting it more broadly than it is. Most people manage their technology use wisely. The fact that it's difficult doesn't make all technology evil. Just like alcohol, drugs, food, and any number of things broadly available, it needs to be managed and some people struggle with that. But that doesn't mean it's bad overall.

TRUMP is the damage.

What about the connection with all the people you would have otherwise had never met. It is just a parallel in this world that give a much broader life connection

Social media is the downfall of our society. I have sat in restaurants and watched entire families eat a meal without speaking a single word to each other as they all had their nose in their phone. I have seen teenage girls sit next t each other and carry on a conversation soley by text rather than just turned their head and talking out loud. Careers have been damaged by stupid facebook and instagram posts, the list goes on. My buddies tease me about how little I use my phone and I simply reply that I use it to call people and little else and I am perfectly happy with that. (I use my laptop for this site)
People have lost the art of interpersonal communication.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, my ex-wife screwed a guy she met on farcebook and ruined our marriage. There's that too.