People are quick to blame social media because there are exceedingly plausible mechanisms by which social media could cause such a phenomenon, and there is tremendous profit in doing so and not just of the money variety. State level actors run secret influence campaigns on facebook, and more recently, just create and control whole social media platforms without oversight.
The time for skepticism about the scale of the effect of social media has passed.
The time for skepticism about the scale of the effect of social media has passed.