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The conventional wisdom is that we self-select into groups of similar thinkers. We share news and opinions with like-minded people---the "echo chamber" effect. But the conventional wisdom may be wrong: [bold added]
And new research suggests that one often-proposed solution—exposing users on the platforms to more content from the other side—might actually be making things worse, because of how social media amplifies extreme opinions...Exposure to the extreme opposite of one's views has a powerful polarizing effect:
when you repeatedly expose people on social media to viewpoints different than their own, it just makes them dig in their heels and reinforces their own viewpoint, rather than swaying them to the other side...
Because social media and Balkanized TV networks tend to highlight content with the biggest emotional punch—that is, they operate on the principle that if it’s outrageous, it’s contagious—when we’re exposed to a differing view, it often takes an extreme form, one that seems personally noxious.
Mr. Sabin-Miller and Dr. Abrams, both mathematicians, call this effect “repulsion.” In addition to the “pull” of repeatedly seeing viewpoints that reinforce our own, inside of our online echo chambers, repulsion provides a “push” away from opposing viewpoints, they argue. Importantly, this repulsion appears to be a more powerful force, psychologically, than attraction to our own side of a debate.Repulsion leads to disgust, then to anger, a witches' brew.
As for me, I now spend less than 15 minutes a day reading but very rarely contributing to Facebook or Twitter.
Similar to the reason that alcoholics don't enter bars, I don't watch Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC. They all have stories about how individuals have been mistreated by politicians or groups that the network is trying to portray negatively, I get angry and am sucked in.
Avoid the suck. Turn them off.
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