I was a news hound in the 80s which was great because TV news didn't suck.

Another 80s early 90s information device was the magazine, there were tons of magazines which were mostly killed off by the Internet.

Social media is a whole lot of everything and 1% substance on a good day. It's a habit it's like Entertainment Tonight you sit there and one day think "why am I watching this?". That actually happened to me in the late 80s I realized I had a half smile grin Joker sort of thing watching banal celebrity news. These days instead of a dumb smile it's my left elbow with osteoarthritis from leaning on it reading about cats, rage faces and other memes or arguing with strangers over things 5000km away.