I want to frame this debate as a systems question, not just a tally of pros and cons. Social media is a tool embedded in our entire social fabric, and like any powerful force, it amplifies what's already there. It's too easy to blame the platform for doomscrolling or anxiety, but those are symptoms of deeper societal pressures. Yes, the harms are real. I won't pretend they're not. But the good isn't just some minor footnote. We're talking about global movements like #MeToo, niche communities for rare illnesses or marginalized identities where people find lifelines, and the ability for a small business in a remote town to reach customers worldwide. That's not trivial. Social media creates feedback loops of empathy and awareness, not just outrage. When we see a problem, we can organize around it in hours, not months. The cure for a lot of these problems isn't less connection, it's better digital literacy. We can't throw out the whole system because we haven't learned to regulate our energy within it.

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Can we really judge a system by its worst outputs and ignore everything it feeds back into the world? My opponent's right that scams, harassment, and endless scrolling are real. But those harms are amplified by existing loneliness, weak regulation, and algorithms chasing attention, not created from nothing. Social media is the feedback loop: it can spread cruelty fast, yes, but it also spreads mutual aid, rare-disease communities, and organizing at a speed we never had. So the question isn't whether it's pure. It's whether removing it would leave us more connected or more isolated. I don't think it would.