How to use social media without it using you

In a world where users can’t directly improve social-media platforms, Yair Rosenberg writes, we can at least make better choices to protect ourselves. One of those choices, as Rosenberg lays out in his “seven social-media commandments,” includes blocking those who use the platform for anger and abuse, instead of continuing to accommodate them. By cultivating our social-media landscapes, we can reap the benefits of technology while reducing potential harm.

Today’s newsletter brings you stories about how you can better use social media.

• “The Seven Social-Media Commandments,” by Yair Rosenberg. Use social media without it using you.
• “Social Media Is Attention Alcohol,” by Derek Thompson. We should learn from alcohol, which is studied, labeled, taxed, and restricted.?
• “How to Take Back Control of What You Read on the Internet,” by Yair Rosenberg. Social-media algorithms show us what they want us to see, not what we want to see. But there is an alternative.
• “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid,” by Jonathan Haidt. Babel is a metaphor for what some forms of social media have done to nearly all of the groups and institutions most important to the country’s future.
• “People Aren’t Meant to Talk This Much,” by Ian Bogost. Breaking up social-media companies is one way to fix them. Shutting up their users is a better one.

—?Katherine Hu, assistant editor