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Social media exposes us to more viewpoints than we would normally see, but I think there is actually a such thing as too much. Online communities have the same

by jchw 1y ago

Social media exposes us to more viewpoints than we would normally see, but I think there is actually a such thing as too much. Online communities have the same kind of issue, they really need to strike a balance between being too much of a "circle jerk", and being too fractured and conflict-ridden to have productive discussion. What I think is interesting, though, is that due to the way social media platforms work, you can actually have both a massive circle jerk amongst people that agree with each-other, and constant, unending, vile conflict between people who do not, due to algorithmic feeds. (If anything, they both wind up feeding into each-other.) IRL I think people are often more empathetic and sympathetic, and I think that this environment leads to less polarized opinions even when our exposure to viewpoints is relatively limited. That said, lately, IRL socialization has become quite limited, especially after the COVID-19 lockdowns. Online interactions are just not really the same... especially not limited to text, over heavily manipulated platforms like Twitter/Facebook/etc. Seems a bit contradictory I'm sure, but if the problems of socializing on the Internet were simple and easy to understand, we wouldn't have to talk about it so much :)

awesome_dude 1y ago
> IRL I think people are often more empathetic and sympathetic, and I think that this environment leads to less polarized opinions even when our exposure to viewpoints is relatively limited. I mean, I hear what you're saying, but the only real difference between IRL and online discussions is that online people can get heated at each other without any fear of physical violence. That limiting factor for IRL prevents people from being more frank about their position on whatever. Speaking as someone that has been public on various political positions in the past, I've seen the polarised views forever. I mean, history is littered with stories about polarised sections of societies inflicting actual violence with one another - American examples might be the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the Vietnam war, Drug use (and it's policing alleged as being a way to break up communities that oppose the ruling community) Oh, I should also point out, people like Nixon, Reagan, Thatcher, Trump, etc, don't come into power in a vacuum, they have vast communities of supporters that believe that they are right, and the communities that they oppose are wrong (same goes for the communities that they oppose, vast groups of people that believe they are right and the community that they oppose is wrong)
- jchw 1y ago
  I think that it's actually not an IRL vs Internet discussion dichotomy FWIW, that oversimplifies things a bit too much. For example, I think sympathy and empathy increases as you go from public interaction in major social platform -> 1-on-1 direct message -> audio call -> video call -> IRL private conversation. Many reasons really. Public interactions have public scrutiny, it often is more of a performance than an authentic social interaction. Text conversations are low bandwidth. All internet conversation carries the burden that things you say may be recorded and used against you. And of course, seeing and hearing a human on the other end just naturally will increase empathy. I hear what you're saying, but I think you are looking at this wrong. I'm not suggesting that IRL social interactions are perfect and Internet ones are hopelessly broken. We have plenty of history to show how IRL social interactions can break down, in small groups or big. What I'm saying is that IRL interactions are better on average than Internet interactions, largely due to the modality and venue that most Internet interactions occur. Edit: also, it is worth noting that there are definitely robust studies that can back up some of these ideas, which may be a good data point to add into this discussion. That said, I am honestly too lazy to go cite sources right now, to be completely honest with you. (And I know HN is rightly a bit skeptical of psychology studies, since you can pretty much find something to validate anything you want, but there are some actually good and interesting ones.)
  - awesome_dude 1y ago
    I think that we're going to have to agree to disagree here. I've definitely had online discussions that were orders of magnitude more productive than the best IRL conversations on similar subjects, because people felt more free to contribute. It's so much more productive online that I look for communities that discuss those subjects (eg. Twitter when it was good, or Reddit). I avoid that IRL because it's so poor.
    - jchw 1y ago
      On an individual level, there's always going to be people whose experiences don't match the average, but I really do believe most Internet conversation isn't particularly productive. I'm not saying I don't have productive Internet conversation, though. Anyway, it seems like we're at an impasse, but I may as well link some references that back up what I'm trying to say. There was this fascinating experiment posted recently to HN, "30 minutes with a stranger": https://pudding.cool/2025/06/hello-stranger/ https://pudding.cool/2025/06/hello-stranger/ - conversation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45124003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45124003 Publications regarding how people are exposed to opposing viewpoints online and how that influences polarization: "How digital media drive affective polarization through partisan sorting" https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207159119 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207159119 "How Many People Live in Political Bubbles on Social Media?" https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244019832705 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244019832705 "Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06297-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06297-w

by jchw 1y ago

awesome_dude 1y ago

> IRL I think people are often more empathetic and sympathetic, and I think that this environment leads to less polarized opinions even when our exposure to viewpoints is relatively limited. I mean, I hear what you're saying, but the only real difference between IRL and online discussions is that online people can get heated at each other without any fear of physical violence. That limiting factor for IRL prevents people from being more frank about their position on whatever. Speaking as someone that has been public on various political positions in the past, I've seen the polarised views forever. I mean, history is littered with stories about polarised sections of societies inflicting actual violence with one another - American examples might be the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, the Vietnam war, Drug use (and it's policing alleged as being a way to break up communities that oppose the ruling community) Oh, I should also point out, people like Nixon, Reagan, Thatcher, Trump, etc, don't come into power in a vacuum, they have vast communities of supporters that believe that they are right, and the communities that they oppose are wrong (same goes for the communities that they oppose, vast groups of people that believe they are right and the community that they oppose is wrong)

jchw 1y ago
I think that it's actually not an IRL vs Internet discussion dichotomy FWIW, that oversimplifies things a bit too much. For example, I think sympathy and empathy increases as you go from public interaction in major social platform -> 1-on-1 direct message -> audio call -> video call -> IRL private conversation. Many reasons really. Public interactions have public scrutiny, it often is more of a performance than an authentic social interaction. Text conversations are low bandwidth. All internet conversation carries the burden that things you say may be recorded and used against you. And of course, seeing and hearing a human on the other end just naturally will increase empathy. I hear what you're saying, but I think you are looking at this wrong. I'm not suggesting that IRL social interactions are perfect and Internet ones are hopelessly broken. We have plenty of history to show how IRL social interactions can break down, in small groups or big. What I'm saying is that IRL interactions are better on average than Internet interactions, largely due to the modality and venue that most Internet interactions occur. Edit: also, it is worth noting that there are definitely robust studies that can back up some of these ideas, which may be a good data point to add into this discussion. That said, I am honestly too lazy to go cite sources right now, to be completely honest with you. (And I know HN is rightly a bit skeptical of psychology studies, since you can pretty much find something to validate anything you want, but there are some actually good and interesting ones.)
- awesome_dude 1y ago
  I think that we're going to have to agree to disagree here. I've definitely had online discussions that were orders of magnitude more productive than the best IRL conversations on similar subjects, because people felt more free to contribute. It's so much more productive online that I look for communities that discuss those subjects (eg. Twitter when it was good, or Reddit). I avoid that IRL because it's so poor.
  - jchw 1y ago
    On an individual level, there's always going to be people whose experiences don't match the average, but I really do believe most Internet conversation isn't particularly productive. I'm not saying I don't have productive Internet conversation, though. Anyway, it seems like we're at an impasse, but I may as well link some references that back up what I'm trying to say. There was this fascinating experiment posted recently to HN, "30 minutes with a stranger": https://pudding.cool/2025/06/hello-stranger/ https://pudding.cool/2025/06/hello-stranger/ - conversation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45124003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45124003 Publications regarding how people are exposed to opposing viewpoints online and how that influences polarization: "How digital media drive affective polarization through partisan sorting" https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207159119 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2207159119 "How Many People Live in Political Bubbles on Social Media?" https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244019832705 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244019832705 "Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06297-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06297-w