Short answers, pulled from the story.
Usenet, conceived by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis in 1979 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, is recognized as the first open social media application; it was established in 1980. SixDegrees.com, launched in the mid-1990s, is considered the first online service designed for people to connect using their actual names, with profiles and friends lists.
Around 3.96 billion people were using social media globally in 2022, up from 3.6 billion in 2020. That figure represents approximately 59% of the global population.
Teenagers who used social media over three hours per day doubled their risk of negative mental health outcomes including depression and anxiety. A 2017 study of almost 6,000 adolescent students found that those with addiction-like symptoms of use were more likely to report low self-esteem and high levels of depressive symptoms. Social media use is also linked to sleep disturbance, with frequency of checking, rather than total time spent, being the key predictor.
Recommendation algorithms filter and display news content that matches users' existing political preferences, which can increase political polarization through selective exposure. In 2017, Facebook gave its emoji reactions five times the weight of its like button, and company data scientists confirmed in 2019 that this had disproportionately boosted toxicity, misinformation, and low-quality news. Algorithms that track engagement tend to favor content that spurs negative emotions like anger and outrage.
In November 2024, Australia passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act, banning people under 16 from using most social media platforms, with the ban set to take effect in December 2025. Platforms that violate the law face a financial penalty of AU$49.5 million. TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter fall under the ban, while YouTube and Google Classroom are exempt.
The US Congress passed a law directing TikTok's parent company ByteDance to divest the service or face a ban from operating in the United States. The US Supreme Court upheld the ban as constitutional in January 2025. An agreement reached in January 2026 allowed TikTok to continue operating in the US by creating a new entity called TikTok US Joint Venture, with ByteDance retaining a 19.9% share while investors including Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX hold the remaining stake.