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On how social media fractures us
Oct. 7th, 2017 04:36 pmWhy is it so hard to understand how people who are politically different from you are thinking?
Most of us get a lot of our news, and even more of the commentary on our news, through social media. And modern social media algorithmically decides what will make us feel best to see, and that is things which comfort us by reinforcing our mindset.
You and I are genuinely not seeing the news stories that would be letting us know why people on the other side feel the way they do, and they're not seeing the ones we do. We can't understand, because our social media are literally preventing us from seeing the information that we could use to understand why other people are coming to the same conclusions they are.
Most of us get a lot of our news, and even more of the commentary on our news, through social media. And modern social media algorithmically decides what will make us feel best to see, and that is things which comfort us by reinforcing our mindset.
You and I are genuinely not seeing the news stories that would be letting us know why people on the other side feel the way they do, and they're not seeing the ones we do. We can't understand, because our social media are literally preventing us from seeing the information that we could use to understand why other people are coming to the same conclusions they are.