You're right. That was a poor lead in on my part, a moment of weakness making me contribute to the same trend I'm bemoaning. Subjective perspectives of how things are (no matter how obvious or thoughtfully analyzed), is not a substitute for diligently trying to tease out effects in formal contexts.
The source of my dismissiveness was looking at the larger context - it feels like "social media" and its "algorithms" is actually one small part of the memetic problems we're facing. They may have helped prime the pump, and if centralized infokontrol had been nipped in the bud fifteen years ago then perhaps things wouldn't have devolved this much. But where we are now the polarization and anti-intellectualism seems pretty self-sustaining regardless.
The source of my dismissiveness was looking at the larger context - it feels like "social media" and its "algorithms" is actually one small part of the memetic problems we're facing. They may have helped prime the pump, and if centralized infokontrol had been nipped in the bud fifteen years ago then perhaps things wouldn't have devolved this much. But where we are now the polarization and anti-intellectualism seems pretty self-sustaining regardless.