Is the role of social media overrated?

In English Class today, we had a little discussion about the role of social media in our lives. The statement was; The role of social media is grossly overrated.
Everybody disagreed with the statement, because social media is global, cheap(free), ubiqutous, and easy accessable for everybody.
Nowdays people use social media to communicate with each other, but also to get to know new people, to learn from each other, the give their oppinion, or follow their idol.
Many 'famous' people also use social media, like twitter, and they can reach a lot of people. Earlier, Youp van het Hek, (Dutch comedian red.) posted a tweet about how scandalous the customersupport of T-mobile was. This became big news in the Netherlands, because so many people read about this on twitter.
And this is just one example.
Another example on the influence on social media; In 2008, there was an earthquake in China, but the Chinese parliament didn't tell this. Chinese citizens posted tweets about the earthquake on twitter, so the whole world knew about it.
So now you know, that social media has A LOT of influence on us.