What is the effect of social media on our culture?

People learn about the cultures of various countries and civilizations through social media.

I strongly agree with the comments mentioning society's improved creativity and social awareness. I believe that access to information is a right and social media greatly facilitates this accessibility. However, I think that social media also directly plays a role in society's rapidly decreasing attention span. Posts are cultivated in a way that they can be digested in seconds and then discarded so individuals are able to consume more media, faster. i.e. Scrolling through 60 sec long TikTok videos into oblivion or Tweets which can be no longer than 140 characters.

Social media polarizes people. Through the algorithm and recommended feed it starts recomending you more and more extreme views which are somewhat in line with what you believe and push you to the edges of the spectrum. This is obvious when looking at the current situation in the US. You can see the massive eco chambers that social media can create. For example the massive delusion that elections were stolen or Qanon that is believed by millions of people with no basis. It is quite scary.

It goes two ways. The bad part is we spend much more time on our phones and get an unrealistic picture of other people's lives than we compare. But the upside is that we can be connected to people we want to be connected to. More communities than ever, more jobs...