I think the social part of social media can be good for us, and we have to figure out a way to avoid the toxicity. I’d like to see more posts about how to bend the algorithm to show you less toxicity- at least on Instagram I’ve managed to use the “not interested/relevant” button enough and turned on content filtering that it mostly shows me wholesome content. I don’t know if everyone realizes that if you hate-watch a video or hate-read a post then the algorithm sees that as engagement and will show you more. You have to nope yourself out of the dark corners as fast as you realize where you are.
In the case of IG what worked for me, without me even trying to be explicit about it, was to like and watch lots of photos/reels involving dogs and dog-ownership and right now my IG feed is 90% full with dog-related posts, and that’s the way I like it. Maybe it works the same way if one were to adopt similar strategies for other subjects of interest, such as cats, owning cars etc., the thing is that there’s almost no political/societal info on my feed anymore.
I can scroll through Facebook now on my laptop, and it means I stop doing so on my phone. I have the phone app just to post updates or to quickly check the location of an event or something.