Can We Blame Social Media For Our Polarized Politics?
The effects are subtler than you might think.
The hyper-partisan nature of American politics came back into the spotlight during the recent BLM protests around the nation. In 2020, more and more people are identifying as consistent conservatives or consistent liberals, rather than a mix of the two (which has historically been the case). Studies have also shown that American beliefs about the other side are becoming increasingly negative. This political polarization can be quite damaging to the functioning of democratic societies.
When people feel strongly about their political identity and group, they tend to draw boundaries based on political affiliations and perceive the world in terms of group membership (Green et al., 2002, Iyengar et al., 2012).
But what is the reason for this polarization? It can be argued that the Trump administration is fuelling this divide. The Coronavirus outbreak also played into America’s partisan culture war. However, a common denominator in all of these events is the use of social media. While some platforms are considerably more political than others (i.e, Twitter), all of the platforms are sites of ferocious political arguments. Instinctively, we are tempted to blame social media. While some studies prove this, the evidence on the other side is also quite compelling.
Maybe, Social Media leads to polarization…
Social media messages are emotionally charged and the platforms itself divide us into digital communities based on our activity online. This creates an echo chamber effect. These online filter bubbles lead to confirmation bias, the idea “that we don’t perceive information objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices.” The filter bubble effect was demonstrated in a study conducted in 2019. The researchers wanted to see who the participants turned to for non-political tasks. They found that even for tasks that were completely non-political (like categorizing geometric shapes) the participants preferred to seek advice from politically-minded individuals. They assumed that these people would be more competent, even though all evidence suggested that they weren’t.
But, if following people with similar views can increase polarization, then shouldn’t listening to the other side decrease polarization? Not so much. A study at Duke University paid hundreds of Democrats and Republicans to follow a Twitter bot that posted about the other side of the political spectrum. It was revealed that “Republican participants expressed substantially more conservative views after following a liberal Twitter bot, whereas Democrats’ attitudes became slightly more liberal after following a conservative Twitter bot.” These results challenge the “filter bubble hypothesis” because even after being exposed to the other side, partisanship can increase.
Another study was more interested in the direct effect social media has on polarization. They found,
Social media indirectly contributed to polarization through increased political engagement. Those who actively used social network sites were more likely to engage in political processes, which led them to develop more extreme political attitudes over time than those who did not use social network sites.
The research above discusses how even though popular discourse on polarization attributes the filter bubbles, there is limited empirical research that shows such effects. Therefore, they attempted to study polarization at the individual level. Even then, they found that only a certain type of social media use leads to extremism and more research needs to be done to validate the hypothesis. The micro-processes that supposedly foster partisanship have not yet been studied extensively.
But Social Media is not an exhaustive explanation
Ezra Klein—Founder and Editor of Vox— challenges our understanding of the situation. He argues, that even though social media might be an accelerant of polarization, it cannot be considered as the driver, mainly because American polarization (as we know it today) predates the rise of social media. According to him, maybe in the future, these platforms will be the primary reason for polarization, but we are not there yet.
Klein’s book, “Why We’re Polarized” sparks an interesting conversation around why the internet is not the answer we’re looking for in terms of political polarization. Here are some of his key takeaways:
- Klein cites a study that was released in early 2020. The researchers collected sizeable data over 40 years from nine relatively wealthy and established western democracies. They found that polarization is not uniformly increasing in Western democracies. In some cases, it is even decreasing (Germany, Britain). This finding helps us debunk the theory that polarization is a by-product of internet penetration. “Internet usage has risen fastest in countries with falling polarization, and much of the run-up in US polarization predates digital media and is concentrated among older populations with more analog news habits.”
- Klein also addresses a common statement we hear these days, “Twitter is not real life”. This is true but platforms like Twitter definitely shape real life. It’s more like Twitter is not representative of mass opinion. Klein calls out “political elites” and how they have a significant effect on the structure of politics. These people mobilize social media to their advantage. So it’s not like the majority of the people are on Twitter and that’s the reason they hate the other side. It’s more like a very small amount of political elites are misusing their power.
- Instead of focussing on how the common man gets polarized on Twitter, Klein wants us to address how journalists are addicted to the platform. This means that Twitter sets the agenda for our news cycle and politicians get rewarded for the kind of extreme behavior that is commonplace on these platforms.
We give Social Media more credit than it deserves for shaping our political extremism. This is harmful because then we start looking to the creators of these apps to solve the problem of political polarization. No one is defending the problematic algorithms and the toxic atmosphere that is fostered by the designers of our social media. Capitalism definitely plays into this and we have historically learned how little motivation the platforms have to foster a healthy democracy.
Instead, we can focus on what we can do as individual users of these platforms. As discussed, simply listening to the other side does not help the situation. Researchers from the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley suggested a cognitive method known as Actively Open-Minded Thinking (AOT). “AOT is a cognitive style that allows people to be more thoughtful, flexible, and open-minded, even when information contradicts a strongly held prior view.” By educating ourselves and adopting such strategies, we can foster healthy discussion both online and offline.
