I have been pro banning all for-profit social media for years. I can live without Reddit. Especially now with Lemmy and fediverse. I can even live with no social media whatsoever. We should probably ban all porn too. It is just as brain rotting as social media. I say this as someone who does watch porn. I can live without it if society gets better from banning it.
It can be both. I am certain that there isn’t one explanation for it. What i describe is the feedback loop. What you describe is the initial conditions. Combined they spell disaster.
This is why we have so much tribalism, polarization and extremism today too though. People find their information bubble, gets validated for the shit they say (i.e. emotional support), feel good about it so they post more and more extreme shit and validate (give emotional support) to others in the bubble.
Now you have an extremist movement. Getting emotional support/validation from strangers on the internet is not always a good thing. Even if it makes you feel less anxious. Some people should feel anxious about the things they think about.
Don’t worry, neither porn or social media will ever get banned :) but the fact that you react so negatively to it should perhaps make you reflect upon your own habits, the way people using social media should reflect upon theirs.