The Problem With Digital Politics in the Modern Age.
Digital politics are taking over social media and almost every other digital platform. This begs the question, is this a good or bad thing? I believe it to be both a good and a bad thing. Many people find this to be a positive because we are helping engage the younger voters and make them more willing to vote as every American should. However, on the flip side many people, including myself, find this to be mainly good but has its fair share of drawbacks. These drawbacks include the large growth of online political arguments and the popularization of judging someone based on who they vote for or what they believe in politically. I find these particular topics excruciatingly painful to watch and be a victim of. This I would say is the main problem with online politics, countless useless arguments not debates that only cause hate and resentment, instead of finding a positive outcome and potentially changing minds. Young adults are very stubborn and impressionable as I am sure we all know. We tend to choose a set of ideals and stick with them no matter what anyone else says. We also get many of our beliefs from our parents and other family members. This causes a ton of useless online arguing over who is right and wrong, instead of understanding that there is a middle ground and that maybe both parties are “right” and “wrong” as commonly said. To face the facts, there is no right and wrong. Most politics are opinions on what we believe to be right and believe to be wrong. But these ideas are not understood or accepted by most young adults, leading to all of these digital arguments we see over politics. About half of the experts say people’s uses of technology will mostly awaken core aspects of democracy and democratic representation, and I can’t say they are far off (Anderson and Rainie). This doesn’t mean that political discourse isn’t highly important, however. The importance of online debate and discussion cannot be stated enough. We need to spread the word of politics, engage as many possible and future voters as possible, and encourage them to seek new knowledge and create their own opinions. As Russell Baker said, “An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious, or just dead wrong.” Overall, digital politics can be seen as both a good and bad thing, and it is our job as a people to make sure it’s good. So with that, I wish you good luck in the online political world and ask, what do you think?
Sources:
Anderson, Janna, and Lee Rainie. “Concerns about democracy in the digital age.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, 21 Feb. 2020, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/02/21/concerns-about-democracy-in-the-digital-age.
