[karaterobot]

You hear this kind of equivalence made a lot: social media is no different than the newspaper, or the TV news. This never made sense to me. Obviously, some characteristic of social media persuaded people to drop their newspapers and turn of their televisions to use their phones instead. There must be something qualitatively different about social media on mobile devices that explains this.

The difference may be that it is better and more enlightening, or it may be that it is more addictive and intrusive. But, it is not the same.