Social media and the rise of everyday extremism
Unfortunately, we live in a bitterly divided country. We cannot even agree on the basics.
For example, skepticism regarding the 2020 presidential election still prevails in some places, as does COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. Additionally, censorship controversies are ongoing both in schools and on social media.
How did we get here? Twenty years ago, the internet was just beginning to see widespread usage in everyday life. At that time, the release of the original iPhone was still more than five years down the road. Today, it is nearly impossible to step outside without seeing somebody engrossed in their pocket-sized supercomputer.
The extent to which technology has completely revolutionized the modern human experience is staggering. However, advancements in technology have not always changed our society for the better.
In many ways, technology takes advantage of human nature. Naturally, the most sensational things garner the most attention. In the age of digital news, this creates a situation in which high quality reporting is not necessarily the most valued product.
A world driven by clicks drives us apart in two primary ways: it distorts people’s perception of normal reality, and it creates echo chambers where ideas go unchecked.
The cliché holds true: if something is free, you are the product. On the internet, access to websites is generally free. Often, sites make money by allowing advertisements on their webpages, and more internet traffic equates to more money. When it comes to reporting news, this process incentivizes sensationalism because extraordinary headlines attract more clicks and therefore more money.
A consequence of this phenomenon is that the people’s perceptions of reality become falsely skewed toward extremes.
The most extreme stories, video clips, and soundbites are those which catch on and go viral. Because there is a disproportionate amount of extreme content circulating, and people consume more online content than ever, the most egregious situations from far and wide occupy the common consciousness and begin to seem more normal.
This normalization becomes especially dangerous when more radical content goes unchecked in echo chambers, where people are only exposed to perspectives with which they agree.
Echo chambers are also a consequence of an internet driven by clicks. Everyone has biases, and when social media platforms, forums, and other sites identify them, they deliberately show their individual users more targeted content to which they will be predisposed. When it comes to politics, people begin to see fewer contrasting opinions, and a positive reinforcement cycle of their own beliefs is created.
When these two phenomena happen simultaneously, when people are presented with increasingly radical one-sided information, trends in political polarization seem to explain themselves. People lose sight of the entirety of the spectrum of rational thought and retreat further into their corner.
Once upon a time, people read the same newspapers, watched the same news, and understood the world in the same way. Then, people could have differing opinions about the same set of circumstances.
Now, different subsets of people can essentially believe in entirely different realities and “facts” while the common narrative is a shell of what it once was.
In a country painfully torn between opposing worldviews, the internet enables and encourages division. Questions must be asked: What unites us anymore? How far apart have people drifted? How can we coexist?
In recent years, there has been a sharp rise in radicalism of all types. We have seen hate, violence, riots, death, pain, and suffering far too often, but we are all just people.
In the end, we want what is best for each other. When things feel tense, try to remember that your fellow Americans, from the neighbors next door to those thousands of miles away, just might not be as bad as you can imagine they possibly could be. In fact, they might even be pretty decent.
~ Johnathon McCartney ’25
