It's not a big insight to say that social media seems to be a technology designed to make us worse versions of ourselves, and addict us to it.  I've found a number of Cal Newport's pieces on this good, but Nicholas Carr's old book The Shallows makes the point nicely too.  It's not even fair to say that social media turns all of us into middle school kids in the 8 minute break between classes, or in lunch period; sometimes it turns us into gullible 80-year olds as well.  In truth, it does neither.  Both analogies are ways of hiding the truth from ourselves.  That truth is this: it enables our worst selves in some important ways.  It preys on whatever mobbing and hyperbolic tendencies we have. 

Basically, the problem I have with a lot of social media is here: that, bad or good, it 

It's understandable if we're shamed by this, but we would do better if we not only sought to resist it, but also sought to understand why we find it so alluring.  No class of people described in the article that the piece is about comes out looking good--not summer's "hot girls", nor autumn's "Christian girls," and definitely neither the audience that loved the first nor the one that tried to encourage hate for the second, nor the one that succumbed to love for the second either.  When all you need to do is click "like," nothing has consequences for you.  Yet ten thousand likes can feel exhilarating, and ten thousand likes on a mocking post about you can feel devastating.  And the fact that you know that these "likes" are what are making you feel good or bad will also make you feel worse about things--if you're boosted by it, you feel wholly superficial and shallow; if you're crushed by it, you feel ashamed and weak. 

It's also astonishing that the author of this piece doesn't seem to recognize that this is a real problem.