Social media didn’t radicalize voters

Despite continued and rising use of social media (including short‑video formats), recent major elections delivered resoundingly moderate outcomes and teen mental‑health indicators have shown improvement. This suggests social media alone is not producing the mass political or public‑health harms often claimed, and that policy responses assuming a straightforward causal link may be misplaced. — If true, this reframes platform regulation and youth‑safety debates by shifting the burden of proof onto claims that social media cause large, ongoing societal harms.