McSchlomo
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 26, 2021
Modeling the emergence of affective polarization in the social media society
Rising political polarization in recent decades has hampered and gridlocked policymaking, as well as weakened trust in democratic institutions. These developments have been linked to the idea that new media technology fosters extreme views and political conflict by facilitating self-segregation...
(Warning: long, only for nerds)
I haven't had time to properly read the actual study and have only read a (german) tl;dr of it.
Basically, it was always thought that social medias are echo chambers, and while thats true, its not the actual problem. In fact, if you get into a debate with someone with opposing opinions and "own them with facts and logic", you tend to only harden their opinion.
Social media is, by now, complete tribalism. All that matters is the identity (who you are and not what you do/say). Identity politics is destroying the discourse entirely.
So far thats not much news, although I feel this study is going into a lot more depth than usual. I'm not super informed in this regard though.
Whats interesting about this study is that there are apparently "points of no return" in this tribalism. The political polarisition will only get worse unless the "tribes" get some kind of common enemy or common goal. Which we all know will never happen.
I'll try to read it more myself later, but I just felt it interesting enough to share it with this forum for now.
Hope its in the right portion of the forum. Never made a thread here.