In the US, polarization between left and right has been increasing inexorably since the 1970s. But tech platforms such as Twitter and Facebook appear to be making what was already a serious problem worse. Studies suggest that experiences of moral outrage in normal ‘offline’ life are relatively rare, with less than 5 per cent of us experiencing it on a daily basis. In the 2010s social media began drenching the general population in levels of outrage the human animal has never before experienced and is not adapted to.
If that wasn’t worrying enough, psychologists also believe that hearing about immoral acts online actually evokes more outrage than when encountered in person. It’s too early to speculate on the full consequences of these radical changes in the public discourse. But consequences there will surely be.
Already, every day, millions of us are needled and outraged by the hysterically stated views of those with whom we don’t agree. Our irritation pushes us into a place of fiercer opposition. The more emotional we become, the less rational we become, the less able to properly reason. In an attempt to quieten the stress, we begin muting, blocking, de-friending and unfollowing.
And we’re in an echo chamber now, shielded from diverse perspectives that might otherwise have made us wiser and more empathetic and open. Safe in the digital cocoon we’ve constructed, surrounded by voices who flatter us with agreement, we become yet more convinced of our essential rightness, and so pushed even further away from our opponents, who by now seem practically evil in their bloody-minded wrongness.
The effects of social media’s echo chamber are magnified by invented news pieces that circulate widely on sites such as Facebook. One investigation found that in the final three months of the 2016 election, the twenty most popular false stories (Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President!‘) had more engagement with people, in the form of shares, reactions and comments, than the top twenty stories from respected sites.
When it was all over, the psychologist Professor Jonathan Haidt told reporters he’d come to believe social media is ‘one of our biggest problems. So long as we are all immersed in a constant stream of unbelievable outrages perpetrated by the other side, I don’t see how we can ever trust each other and work together again.’
