I dunno. After moving to the valley and leaving all my friends behind, social media is my one connection to anyone besides my wife. I don't compare myself to people on SM and feel bad. I see my friends and family and generally feel good.
I've noticed that people who use it to share political posts, rants, etc. tend to be some of the most emotionally negative people I've met. (reposting stuff entails low thinking effort)
Whereas people who write little David-Sedaris-like stories about their lives, sometimes with pictures, tend to receive positive emotional benefits. It's like the practice of writing Christmas letters but instead of doing it once a year, you get to do continuously. Sure there is the occasional flexing and humblebragging, but even the most humble among us can't help but share our little life victories on occasion (e.g. Ph.D. graduation, vacations taken, etc.). In my circles, people tend to share stories about their foibles and flaws too, often in a funny way, so it kind of balances things out.
Facebook is an especially great place for introverts to be vulnerable through the medium of the written word. In real life social settings, introverts tend to be crowded out by others and can sometimes struggle to tell their story. When we're in a face-to-face situation, there isn't always the occasion to truly share in detail because the politer ones among us want to avoid hogging all the attention. And even when the spotlight is on us, we don't always remember all the interesting stories to tell.
That's why the written form is so powerful as a tool for self-revelation and vulnerability. It helps deepens relationships. I've had friends who've read my posts come up to me in person to tell me, "I never knew that about you", which actually made it possible to have deeper in-person connection.
I do have a few rules about posting: if I didn't write/create it, I won't post it; and before I post, I ask: "is it kind? is it true?" These rules seem to keep me out of trouble.
I keep track of friends and family, see peoples' kids, see what vacations they're on, see nice photos, and yes, some news (some not so nice news).
Whereas twitter is a toxic cancerous cesspool of attention-seeking, all wrapped in an utterly unusably backwards UI.
Instagram's somewhere in between. Can't remember who's who anymore, bit more attention-seeking than FB, quite a bit less than Twitter.
I guess it depends on your use case. I've never found any value in following "influencers" or brands, I'm more interested in what my actual real-life friends and acquaintances are up to, and FB is far better at that. The reduction of anonymity really helps, too. It's more of a community, less of a shouting match.
Without social media filling up all the spare minutes, then overflowing into things I actually need to do, I have so much more time to do things I want to do.
As someone who moved away from my home country about 8 years ago and is still in touch with old friends via WhatsApp on an almost daily basis, this (regretfully) definitely rings true.
https://www.theodysseyonline.com/if-youre-not-losing-friends...
Facebook meant I wasn't quite as lonely as I might otherwise have been. I've never had many friends where I lived anyway, but as it works out... I do now. Facebook has helped facilitate that and facilitate communication with the local friends.
It didn't for me. I still made friends in real life, and FB helped me deepen some of those friendships by helping me reveal more about myself (I'm an introvert who's much better at writing than talking).
I had to leave my home town for work after getting laid off during the Great Recession. It was supposed to be very temporary, well, turns out it ended up being more permanent than I ever imagined.
I use Facebook to keep in contact with all my hometown friends. On top of that Facebook has allowed me to get back in touch with a childhood friend I haven't seen or heard from in 15+ years and it's also given me a great way to connect to new friends.
One of my best friends now I met once at an event in person, we connected on Facebook, and got talking on there. Now we talk most days over text message and we see each other a couple times a month, sometimes going on trips together. Without Facebook we would have had a single conversation ever. Sure, without Facebook we might have exchanged phone numbers after meeting, except that Facebook lends itself to friction-free low "risk" interactions in the way that phone just doesn't.
But social media ≠ Facebook. I never really used Facebook, and all my friends are (also) on other, smaller, even tiny networks, and some are just in email and video calls.
Through these tiny networks, I actually found new friends.
That and I'm 44. I'm at the age where it is increasingly difficult to generate real friendships with people. I used to be a 'renaissance man', but after I got divorced I basically just work all the time. There's not much left to connect to others with. My stomach is shot so I can't socially drink much. I lack the patience for gaming. I used to like to hike and can't afford the time now. It feels like the next 20 years are something I just need to endure and hope for a nice retirement. It's completely opposite to my worldview, but I'm pretty much starting over financially and don't have a lot of options. If I'd just accepted the other job offer last year, I would literally be sitting on $1M of stock options. I chose wrong. I picked the company whose stock tanked.
While it's a very human reaction to go "I don't see what the problem is" until the waters are lapping at your front door, your single data point inference provides plausible cover for the damage-peddlers to go "see, everything is fine". You suggest the clear evidence for harm is at best, debatable.
Smoke your whole life and never get cancer? Lucky you. But don't be that guy saying "I dunno man, I'm fine you know".