Is the internet and social media making us more polarized?

[HumbleThinker]

@Salvor

I wonder if this might be part of the toxic mix making people more polarized than they were before.
Remember that black mirror episode where you had an implant in your eye that recorded everything you saw in life and could play it back for perfect recollection of all of life? And remember how knowing everything someone said or did with perfect memory was a bad thing?
I think social media does something similar but different, it allows people to REALLY get a clear sense about what others actually think and believe in a way that was not possible before. To know me is to love me? pfft, As a liberal who listens to talk radio, the more I listen, the more I despise a great many of those hosts and callers. I reserve islands of respect for some, but not as much as their used to be. And even that is more muted compared to the bile online. Quasi anonymity tends to encourage the most vicious forms of speech and discussion. I know anytime I look in the comments section of a breitbart article to expect nothing but puss and bile of miles. All of this paints a more vivid picture of my political enemies, and it inspires a desire to get out the roach spray rather than reach out and discuss things.
Or you all think this has less to do with the increased polarization and the answers lie elsewhere, like larger macro economic trends or social changes?

I would say that there isn’t a causal link. What I would say is that they are enabling us to become more polarized. The same political behaviors we have been exhibiting since forever are what are causing us to become polarized; the environment is what enables us to be more or less polarized compared to other environments.

[PatrickLondon]

I can remember reading some research* nearly 20 years ago that observed increased polarisation in online debate: because people only perceive themselves as interacting with an inanimate machine and any response or feedback taking a certain amount of time to appear, rather than seeing a living, breathing human being reacting as they speak.

*The Psychology of the Internet (Patricia Wallace)

[What_the]

@sleestak

Certainly.

Take the 'Dope. It leans left hard. There are a few right leaning folks but not many. Some on the 'Dope seem to think it is because people on the right are all stoopid, however it is much more the case that if you state an opinion that is out of line with the general leftiness of the board, you get called all sorts of things, none of which are nice.

So the conservative folks tend to leave to find people who don’t instantly hate them for just being.

Personally, I hate both the D and R parties. I have some liberal beliefs, some conservative. For the most part my beliefs are consistent, though not always, sucks being human sometimes.

Anyway, the echo chambers on both the left and the right get silly. I try and get news and opinion from both sides but frequently find myself insulted by both sides. I try and take that as a compliment, but it gets old so I tend to opt out and go read guitar boards or play Go.

Slee

Help me out Slee as I am much like you. I pretty much avoid the echo-chamber of Fox News and Limbaugh but I haven’t been able to find an alternative to Drudge. I do realize his headlines and hyper-link descriptions offer more than they deliver though.