Increasing Polarity In Our Society and Social Media

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MUNner’s Daily

8 min readApr 25, 2021

#opinion

It‘s a well known realization that our current society is highly polarized like never before. We are being quite ignorant and bashful against others who we don’t agree with, leading to arguments in the comments section, posts and messages. Things have gotten extremely worse to the point that, individuals have started to forget basic human decency and politeness. People being divided by their beliefs and politics is not something new, but the way they express their disagreement has changed radically. From rather snarky remarks and sarcasm of each other’s views, to “What I believe is inherently right!”, and finally the most dangerous of all — “Anybody who disagrees with me, shouldn’t exist at all”.

What/Who is the culprit of this radical change in people’s thinking? Well, I can answer that. There are a lot of factors that has lead to this toxic mentality.

Social Media

Ah yes! Is anything wrong with the world right now? If there is, it’s all social media’s fault!! Definitely not. There are definitely cons to social media, but I’m not putting the entire blame on it for this particular case (except for two things). Social media is a window to a lot of amazing cultures and beliefs that are alien to us. There are things that make you laugh, think and agree. But this was not something that was tailored to make you comfortable, and to give you affirmations on everything you believe in. When things that challenged our beliefs started to come up, we felt cheated. Social media ceased to become our happy place, it was now just like the real world — filled with people who think different. But this wasn’t just like the real world.

In the real world you would have to talk with the people who didn’t agree with you, you’d have to work with people who might disagree with your political leaning. But on the internet, you could avoid all these oppositions and just form groups where everyone thinks similarly. It’s definitely not bad to have company with similar minded people, but when you surround yourself too much with like-minded people, you may become narrow minded as well. Such mentality has lead to formations of groups like the incels and the neo nazi movement, both of which has led to real world consequences. Social media gave users the ability to network based on the tastes they had, and eventually this power caused them to live in this bubble — where everything they believed was true, which resulted in their radicalization.

Fear mongering and Manipulation

The 2014 elections were the first time social media was used heavily as a propaganda spreader — from promises of the future to hate speeches, to washed out truths and fake news. I’d argue that it influenced the results of the election a lot. But something changed during that election. People started to get offended that there were people who didn’t agree with them. This attitude shifted to even more hostility as people started to believe that this should get rid of their oppositions. The whole social media platform started becoming extremely hostile. You will get hate from people for being different from them. People started to lose the sense that they’re in a public domain while arguing with each other.

People got manipulated by individuals in power through fear mongering and other baits. The political agenda made its followers believe that the opposition’s existence is a threat to the society. Total strangers were grabbing at each other’s throats for the simple fact that they disagree. The manipulation done by political parties for their gain is affecting the society a lot - creating unbalance among religions and spreading hatred.

Advancement in A.I.

Online media platforms generate revenue through ads which is proportional to the time a user spends on the platform. Tech companies always want to increase the usage time a person spends online, so they started using AI to attract users by recommending them articles or videos which they would like, based on their browsing information or likely interest. I don’t have any idea how this system works but I can discuss the aftermath of it’s implementation.

People started becoming more polarized as the AI did it’s job - raise a generation who lives in the comfort of their bubble of constant reassurance about their beliefs and hostility to other’s opinion. The online media is filled with extremists, who can manipulate people, and turn them against an ideology. I’m not a fan of custom user recommendations as I think it proposes a situation where people can become too much of themselves. The more they think they’re right, the more they will be condescending/dismissive of other’s opinion. Custom recommendation AIs (don’t know the correct technical name for them)are now part of almost every social media site. Fortunately, sites have decided to be careful as they realized that they’re holding an extremely powerful tool. YouTube is infamous for publicizing Trump’s radical political propaganda, even giving conspiracy channels attention and views.

Polarization

Social media’s design and internal workings are without doubt a big reason to why society is like this right now. These two factors are the reason that lead to radicalization of groups, which in turn manifests into hostility towards other groups with different beliefs. This process happens at both ends of the spectrum. Along with that, social media gives a certain freedom to users, unlike real life — taking actions without consequences (I’m talking about actual laws regarding how to behave in the virtual space. Unlike real world laws, there are only a few and they are not strictly implemented). So what rules social media, is a mob mentality. (Although in extreme cases, the authorities do intervene.)

So people have formed this sense that they can do whatever they want and behave however they like on the internet. So they just lash out at people and those people react back in the same way. Anyone may feel offended if someone insults their beliefs, it’s human nature. But we do have the power to decide what reaction we can give. Insults and death threats is definitely not the way to go.

What can we change?

People should start to view social media as a part of the real world. Nobody is going to be rude in the real world to a total stranger. Technology has progressed so fast that the internet has become part of our daily life and we need to accept it as a public domain. People should become vary of fear mongering and virtue signaling. They should at least show respect for each other while having a civil debate. They should realize that the one in the receiving end of your argument is a human being. I’m not saying that people should agree with what everything others say. What I’m actually trying to say is that people should

“Agree to Disagree”.

Grey Area

What I have written so far is against the fact that people are becoming polarized, but people having different opinions and beliefs to each other is always welcome for a society to grow. Without that, society would become stagnant. I did previously mention that each individual must respect each other’s opinion — but this shouldn’t be all the case. It’s definitely hard for me to be respectful to comments that spread violence, or any discrimination towards someone or justify harmful behavior. So it’s pretty important that we become self aware and not apply the things I’ve written without understanding the context of the situation. The answer is not to agree, nor to disagree. but it is to understand that people are different and that it’s okay that they’re different.

Conclusion

I don’t think our society has lost all hope. I don’t think this is the most low our society has ever went. I do think society will bounce back from it’s present reality. This is just how life was and always will be — people having differences, but we can decide that our differences should be expressed in a civil manner. I conclude with a quote I stole from Michael Austin.

“The first thing people usually do when they decide to reduce the outrage in their lives is stop talking about politics altogether — or at least stop arguing with people who disagree with them. This is exactly the wrong response. We are supposed to argue about politics; we’re just supposed to figure out how to do it without shouting at the top of our lungs and calling each other stupid or evil.
Democracy calls us to have uncomfortable conversations. It asks us to listen to each other even when we would rather be listening to ourselves — or to people enough like us that we might as well be listening to ourselves. It is easier and more comfortable for us to live in a perpetual high dudgeon inside our echo chambers than it is to have a meaningful conversation with people who disagree with us. The entire outrage industry has been designed to keep us in our bubbles, never challenged by disagreement and never required to think that we might be wrong.”

Disclaimer: We are a platform which allows all views to be represented without bias or discrimination. This piece is not to be judged upon as the final stance of MUNner’s daily or MEC MUN Society.

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