Censorship on social media is clearly a bad idea. Americans ought to enjoy the rights of free expression, unencumbered by malcontents who disagree but have the power of censorship. However, social media itself is hardly free of bad effects. Cultural commentator Georgi Boorman argues that it’s actually been a net negative in some key ways.

What happens on social media doesn’t stay there. After more than a decade of growth for platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, that much is undeniable. Social media has been sharply criticized for sucking attention away from the physical world and contributing to greater political polarization, but how it is changing our very selves — beyond compelling us to buy things, shortening our attention span, or causing our brains to offload the storage of literal memories to social media — receives far less attention. The so-called “crisis of character” acknowledged by pundits across the political spectrum overlaps greatly with the crisis of social media dependence. Social media use should be seen as a self-modification project, and one in which we become worse people.

Boorman covers the false sense of social connection, the destruction of self-regulation, and curating one’s persona to match the feedback of social media, which all are negative things with negative consequences. Among those consequences is the disastrous increase in gender confusion.

The reconstruction of the self via the online world is utterly dependent on this feedback. The most radical and infamous cases of this involve transgender ideology. As Scott Newgent, a biological woman who regrets transition, explained, “These kids go on social media and make accounts with their FTM, MTF or non-binary descriptions. And then tens of thousands of strangers cheer them on.”

Negative reactions can even serve to drive a feeling of victimization, further enforcing the idea that they are a persecuted minority just trying to “live their authentic selves.” Those who get enough affirmation from this vast pool of “pings” may begin the project of remaking themselves in real life. Twenty thousand people on social already believe in you, right? What’s a few friends and neighbors in real life compared to that? Your “friends” on social have your back. They know this is who you are. If you turn back now, what are you? A fraud? A loser with no followers? You will be lonely again, and lacking affirmation.

The transgender cult is hardly the only evidence of this, of course. Political tribalism can be as well.

Boorman asks a critical self-evaluation question:

When I look up from a long social session, am I more kind to my family? No. Am I more able to bear the frustrations of my young children’s fickleness? No. Am I calmer? Certainly not. And I don’t often gain any valuable knowledge in exchange for my time.

She concludes:

I’m not saying social media hasn’t driven any positive changes in the world. When my daughter was gravely ill in the hospital, empathetic Twitter followers (and many outside that) took up the call to prayer. Thousands prayed for Baby G, and God answered those prayers. Social is a powerful tool, but we can’t deny it’s corrupting us as individuals, and as a society. …

[Yet] who among us, after more than a decade with a universe of attention-exchange in our pockets, can say social media hasn’t changed us? ​And who can say it hasn’t changed us for the worse?