Social Media Polarization: The Dark Side of Media

Social media polarization is when opinions and beliefs have to be either white or black. It obliges people to either be with or against, leaving no room for neutrality and objectivity. Social media has become one of the primary sources of information, eventually ranking as one of the most influential and powerful tools on the internet. However, as social media has little to no proper management of information, there is a lot of misleading content. The proliferation of unreliable sources has a huge impact on people’s beliefs and thoughts.

Moreover, the structured algorithms of social media limit the perspectives a user is subjected to. Users tend to engage with content that aligns with their opinion. Thus, this will cause the algorithm to display similar content to them. However, the content may gradually become more biased, extreme, and enraged. This issue causes a critical problem which is social media polarization. Instead of being open to a variety of opinions, users will only look at one side of the story, fostering extremism and intolerance.

Finding your ‘tribe’ can be addictive.

Social media has allowed users with similar interests and opinions to create communities or “echo chambers”. In this way, they can have a safe space to share their thoughts. Consequently, when users realize that there is a group who shares their thoughts and beliefs, they will feel comfortable. Social media has been proved to create a sense of belonging for users, and this feeling can become addictive.

Users may start searching for a community that will accept them and become a part of it. Hence, social media promotes taking sides on one end of the spectrum, leaving no room for neutrality. Eventually, social media polarization increases bias. Individuals will think they have to side with one opinion or else this will lead to their exile. In other words, social media has contributed to creating two extremist groups of either “pro” or “anti”.

We’re exposed to more extreme opinions, more often.

Research has indicated that as users are subjected to a certain opinion, the chances of being exposed to a more extremist part of the opinion increase. As users scroll through their feed, most of their content will be tailored in a way that favors their opinion. This will lead the user to think that there is a huge community of people who think this way. Moreover, this will make them believe that their opinion is the right one. This is extremely dangerous since the reality is that the algorithm simply does not expose the user to other opinions.

It is likely that there is another huge community that follows another opinion but the individual does not see it. Echo chambers on social media intensify the problem through reinforcing ideas into users’ minds. This increases selective exposure and confirmation bias. Furthermore, this will also create users who do not tolerate other opinions. Once they see someone who disagrees, they will become furious and agitated.

Social Media Polarization in Politics

Politics is one of the most controversial topics, and social media increases the gap between two political parties. Social media definitely gives people an opportunity to express their views. At the same time, it can also be used as a tool for political propaganda. In the book  “Frenemies: How Social Media Polarizes America‘, the author Settle suggests that the manipulation of users on social media is easily done. For example, the Democrats and the Republicans in the U.S are probably viewing content that falls within their system of beliefs. Settle explains how this biased exposure is problematic as it increases attachment to one’s beliefs.

Eventually, the individual’s tolerance to argue or adopt a different perspective becomes harder. Moreover, social media polarization affects users by making them more susceptible to misinformation. Whenever the individual encounters content that supports their perspective, they will believe it without checking its credibility. This one-sidedness that exists within social media intensifies hatred and anger between different groups, especially in politics. Since all this benefits tech companies, they may take advantage of this situation and further the tensions. Reports indicate that politics has become a form of extremism, and many individuals are not aware of people with different political affiliations.

Blindly following the mainstream opinion

Another facet of social media polarization is when one opinion or belief is dominant, people will blindly follow it. The features of social media allow users to express their opinions and widely interact together. For example, ‘Tiktok’ is one of the platforms that allows any person’s content to go viral and trending, creating a huge audience. In this sense, users may feel that whatever is trending and receiving many impressions is what should be adopted.

This opinion becomes the mainstream, popular, and dominant among people. As younger people are joining social media, adolescents try their best to reach social media fame and eventually become ‘influencers’. Individuals start to blindly follow the mainstream opinion and promote it without even knowing the whole story. In order to become part of this huge community, users engage in spreading this perspective of the story. Most of the times, they may not have even listened to the other perspective or have enough background about the issue.

Cancel Culture

Cancel culture is when a person is ‘canceled’ as in society has excluded them, whether in social media or in person. People may cancel someone because they may believe that this person did something wrong in a way or another. As explained, social media polarization has created two binaries of “pro” and “anti” groups. If the issue revolves around a person, one group will reside with the person while the other will go against them. Those who go against this person will cancel them. However, in some cases, cancel culture goes too far, especially when this opinion becomes the dominant one. Many users take advantage of situations where an influencer says or does something wrong.

After that, they start bashing them on social media, wanting to ‘cancel’ them. Individuals start engaging on these types of posts and leaving harsh comments, verbally abusing and bullying the person. Their actions are justified and normalized just because it is under the umbrella of the cancel culture. Many users start to blindly follow this opinion and refuse to even listen to the person’s explanation regarding what happened.

The Depp-Heard Trial

For example, in the Depp-Heard trial, the hashtag “#justiceforjohnnydepp” was viral on Tiktok. A huge number of users started posting content about the trial, bashing Heard and refusing to believe any statement she says. People no longer gave room to have a neutral stance or listen to both sides. It could only be that Depp is right and that he didn’t make any mistake. On the other hand, Amber Heard has to be lying and pretending in every accusation. Many people started participating in this battle just because it is trend while not even knowing what is going on. Moreover, these people were being biased towards their opinion without trying to be objective.

Since the group that supports Depp was much bigger and was more trending, the users who engaged in this content got to listen only to views similar to their own. Barely any one even tried to listen to supporters of Amber Heard. Some individuals went against these biased opinions and claimed that both Depp and Heard were abusive towards each other, and both did not deserve to win.

The trial as an excuse for misogyny

Furthermore, some reports have claimed that the immense support that Depp received isn’t to be glorified. This is because it could be a threat to future Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault victims who are afraid of speaking against their abusers. The trial was being used to promote misogynistic comments and go against women. This shows the importance of trying to be objective and not take extreme stances. Group polarization is dangerous as it prevents people from thinking critically about the situation and assessing it without having any bias.

Finally, when the opinion of one of the extreme groups become prevalent, this group may use cancel culture to publicly bully and verbally abuse people. Everyone makes mistakes, but is cancelling this person and treating them this way the solution? This is just one example of how people blindly follow the mainstream opinion because of social media polarization.

Conclusion

As a result, social media has become an important tool to promote extremist ideas and spread misinformation. Instead of being open to different perspectives, individuals tend to read content that is similar and sometimes the same as their thoughts. This will lead users on social media to be more intolerant towards other opinions and create more extreme followers.

As this issue keeps increasing online, we need to keep in mind that social media only represents one side of the story. There is still another huge community with another opinion. We need to realize that there is no absolute truth or correct opinion and that each of us has their own way of thinking.

References

Cinelli, M., De Francisci Morales, G., Galeazzi, A., Quattrociocchi, W., & Starnini, M. (2021). The Echo Chamber Effect on social media. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(9). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2023301118

Matthews , J. (2022, January 16). Radicalization pipelines: How targeted advertising on social media drives people to extremes. The Conversation. Retrieved June 4, 2022, from https://theconversation.com/radicalization-pipelines-how-targeted-advertising-on-social-media-drives-people-to-extremes-173568

Pransky, N. (2021, February 26). How social media is Radicalizing You (yes, you)…and how to stop it. LX. Retrieved June 4, 2022, from https://www.lx.com/politics/social-media-is-radicalizing-you-yes-you-heres-how-to-stop-it/31852/