Is social media a broken idea or simply inefficient for our needs?

Social media is perfectly adequate for most people's needs - organizing groups, communicating with people, browsing shared news and interests, and so on.

Realistically, social media is just a multimedia communication paradigm, and asking if social media is a broken idea is kind of like asking if the telephone is a broken idea. Plenty of people are getting value out of it, including most HN users, I'd bet.

I find that it was not inefficient, but too efficient. Like our brains weren't ready for that dopamine hit of a Like, Retweet, and other instant feedback of validation.

Same thing with witch hunts online. Don't forget the famous "We did, Reddit!" where people were able to come together as a mob in an easier fashion than ever before (round the clock, and not defined by geographical borders)

We weren't, and still aren't, ready for it so we're struggling. This isn't even really social media specific, but social media's adoption was faster than any other technology I can think of in history. Like dwarfs phone, radio, and TV adoption.

I think it might be useful to be a little more specific in your question:

Social media is a broad term and (in)efficiency can mean just about anything depending on context. Last but not least: What are our needs in your opinion?