Billions of people use them daily (facebook, instagram, X, youtube, tiktok...). Surely we could live without them like we did not long ago, but there's so much interest at play here that I don't see how they could be banned. It's akin to shutting down internet.
Would we really be better served with media returning to being un-interactive and unresponsive? Where just getting on TV was something of note instead of everyone being on the internet. Where there was widespread downright cultish obsession with celebrities. The "We interrupt this news live from Iraq for celebrity getting out of prison news" era.
I think not. The gatekeepers of the old media pretty much died for a reason, that they seriously sucked at their job. Open social media and everyone having a camera in their pocket is what allowed us to basically disprove UFO sightings and prove routine police abuse of power.
Why not? What good has social media done that can't be accomplished in some other way, when weighed against the clear downsides?
That's an honest question, I'm probably missing lots.