A quiet walk in a garden does something positive whereas an hour on social media would leave me feeling very negative and depleted - there's an inverse relationship between time spent on social media and how one feels. The more time spent there, the worse one feels. You could say this is "by design" - outrage increases engagement.
My social media is overwhelmingly positive. I see celebrations, beauty, fun, and love. Social media makes me happy and more connected.
Maybe it’s because I’ve deliberately curated my feeds and follow few people? If I see something I don’t like repeatedly, I unfollow.
Maybe. I guess I could say my Instagram feed is like what you're saying to some extent - mostly exercise tips, recipes, underwater photography, pics of friends having dinner, etc. But twitter on the other hand was terrible. I quit twitter in May as it was just becoming an outrage factory. Maybe I've been more careful with who I'm following on IG? Maybe IG isn't as amenable to political discussions and thus tends to stay saner? I'm not sure.
But yeah, I sometimes accidentally click a trending topic. That makes me a bit sad, mostly because there clearly are a lot of people out there who aren't getting the help they need.