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Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
- dooglius 1y agoLinks are "DOI NOT FOUND". Article does not seem to suggest that the study actual found any relationship between the increase in the two things, just that they both happened around the same time.
- unglaublich 1y agoThe common demoninator is the rise of social media networks.
- smallerize 1y agoUnfortunately, even for the most fast-moving journals, that time is typically several hours before the actual articles appear on the journal’s website. So, anyone who’s reading quickly is likely to find that the DOI fails. But that rule only applies to the fast-moving journals, like Nature and Science. Many other journals can take a few days between when they allow journalists to write about a paper and when it becomes available to the scientific community—PNAS, which is a major source of material for us, falls in that category. https://arstechnica.com/science/2010/03/dois-and-their-discontents-1/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2010/03/dois-and-their-disco...
- foobarian 1y agoThis always seemed intuitively inevitable if you ever played with a graph layout tool like dot or similar kinetic layout engine. With weak connectivity the nodes don't cluster readily, but with more connections they "snap" into rigid subassemblies. It always seemed to me like a bad thing for society but it could well be a case of "old man yells at moon."
- HPsquared 1y agoIn the limit you get periodic crystal structures when connectivity is maxed out and fully optimized.
- txrx0000 1y agoThe problem isn't connectivity provided by the Internet or the average number of friends. Those things are good on their own. The problem is centralized moderation in an infinitely connective environment (aka the Internet), which will create intellectually and ideologically homogenous groups that increase in size without limit. For details see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45515980 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45515980 The solution is to ban all server-side ranking, moderation, and filtering mechanisms and replace them with client-side-only solutions, at least for large platforms above a certain user count like X and YouTube. Same thing for search engines and chatbots. Each person should be able to control what they can post and view online, but not what anyone else posts or views. The norms that we use to moderate physical public spaces must not be applied to online public spaces. Until we discard those norms, people will continue to become increasingly polarized, democracy will continue to decline worldwide, and violent conflicts will continue to increase in frequency and scale.
- gruez 1y ago>The solution is to ban all server-side ranking, moderation, and filtering mechanisms and replace them with client-side-only solutions, at least for large platforms above a certain user count like X and YouTube. Same thing for search engines and chatbots. This is such a HN response. A HN reader might think it's fun to spend a weekend on writing/testing a ranking algorithm, but not the average person. They're just going to use whatever the platform recommends.
- txrx0000 1y agoWe need to ban the platform from recommending at all. It would be like more sophisticated Adblock. There are many providers of Adblock lists, but they can't be provided by the platform itself.
- kiba 1y agoMost people will use the default algorithm. A minority will choose a different algorithm. It's only a partial solution. Really, the correct response is regulatory oversight and taxation on remaining economic rent. They are monopolies, and should be regulated as such.
- tsumnia 1y ago"An information flow model for conflict and fission in small groups (1977)" by Wayne W. Zachary [https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3629752.pdf https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3629752.pdf] I know this paper isn't about social networks, but we know this, we knew it in the 70s. The only difference is that we continue to ignore and forget it.
- 0xbadcafebee 1y agoIn-group dynamics are further ingrained as the group gets bigger. If you have 4 friends in a group, their opinions aren't as strong. If you have 40 friends in a group, not only are their opinions stronger, they'll fight vigorously to defend the group's commonly accepted beliefs. So a growing social circle does reinforce the group dynamic. (this is well established by lots of studies) But increased polarization around the world isn't because of this. There's the typical environmental factors: an increase in changes (or challenges) to traditional values increases polarization; an influx of migrants increases polarization. But then there's also social media, where mastery of "engagement" by businesses for profit has been adopted by political groups looking to sow division to reap the benefits of polarization (an easier grip on power). The rapid rise of polarization is a combination of both. It's nothing new of course, political/ideological groups have been doing this forever. We just have far more advanced tools with which to polarize.
- txrx0000 1y agoBefore the Internet and social media, groups had a practical size cap because they had to meet up in person. Polarization was naturally limited. I don't think the social media companies' algorithms are entirely to blame. But more broadly it's centralized moderation of public online spaces. Moderation of public behavior of physical spaces was only necessary because it wasn't possible to selectively filter people's influences on eachother in public. If someone is doing something you don't want to see in public, covering your eyes is not good enough because you also block out the people you do want to see. Centralized moderation was a practical half-measure rather than an ideal solution for a democratic society that values free expression and self-determination. That kind of moderation isn't necessary online because all filters can be implemented client-side. We just aren't doing it because people are so used to the old way. But the old way will naturally lead to more and worse conflict when we have infinite connectivity.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- int_19h 1y agoWe aren't doing it because most people want to suppress (some kind of) speech, meaning they don't want others to hear it either.
- patokkuyak 1y ago[dead]
- crazygringo 1y ago> "Despite minor differences between individual surveys, the data consistently show that the average number of close friendships rose from 2.2 in 2000 to 4.1 in 2024," says Hofer. If true, this is an astonishing social transformation, because it goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse. Or have people redefined what they consider to be "close friends"? Or are people actually genuinely maintaining more friendships because phones make it so much easier to message?
- tanseydavid 1y ago>> goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse This seems like a hot-take. IMHO one does not and cannot cure loneliness by having more online friends.
- dijit 1y agoYeah, if anything I would say that leans in to the loneliness epidemic, if we take things like Dunbars Number to be true. Having more shallow friends is actually much more isolating than having fewer deep friends.
- dlivingston 1y agoCompletely agree. Fully online friendships are hollow simulacrums of the real thing, like most fully online things compared to their offline counterparts. That's not to say there isn't real connection or real value there, just that they are a supplement to - and not a replacement for - the 'real thing'. Example: long-distance relationships vs. in-person. My wife and I started off as long distance before moving to the same city together. Obviously we established a very real relationship digitally, but it was a means to an end, and not an end in itself, and the real-world date nights and so on are so much deeper and richer than Facetime calls.
- avensec 1y ago+1. Just adding my own breakdown. What most people describe as Loneliness is a specific form of loneliness that represents the degree of disconnection they feel from others. When you don't feel seen and heard in a friendship, you are more likely to feel alone. More people "proving" they don't want to know you or see you, reinforces the idea.
- zkmon 1y agoPolarization maybe a bit unclear word here. Connectivity creates cohesion, which creates larger creatures. So what we have is, virtual monsters roaming around with huge human groups riding on them. They can organize real protests, polarized opinion and massive impact wherever these monsters go.
- zwnow 1y agoMonsters is a interesting choice of words. Why call it monsters? Isn't polarization a good thing? If I was enslaved by tyrants making my life worse everyday, shouldn't I be opposed by their ways?
- txrx0000 1y agoMore polarization is good if people are allowed to naturally polarize in different directions. Alignment between individuals are supposed to emerge naturally, forming small groups that are internally polarized in the same direction. Democracy would work fine in that society. But now we have huge online mobs that are homogenously polarized that want to kill eachother. It gets violent when the group size reaches the nation-state level because that's where most of the violence and oppression in our society is siloed. We have to limit group sizes online. Before social media, it was physically limited by the difficulty of meeting up in person. But now groups just keep getting larger and more homogenous.
- Jensson 1y ago> If I was enslaved by tyrants making my life worse everyday, shouldn't I be opposed by their ways? That wouldn't create polarization, it would create extremely strong cohesion since everyone else enslaved by those tyrants would agree with you.
- zwnow 1y agoI dont know, stockholm syndrome exists and I feel like its very relevant in modern society considering how many people are bootlickers for their employers. I agree that people with an anti humanistic worldview being able to network is very dangerous. But most polarization I've personally witnessed are people not wanting to live in a system that heavily favors the rich without forcing them to contribute in the same amount poorer people do. People just wanna buy houses and be able to afford a family, while houses are being used as speculative objects by the rich.
- thefz 1y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number Thanks to David Wong for explaining this in JDATE, calling it the Babel threshold.
- dauertewigkeit 1y agobetter connectivity -> people finding better friendship matches -> groups are more homogenous -> more polarization
- HPsquared 1y agoSelf-actualisation often leads to conflict.
- txrx0000 1y agoI think the causal relationship is not quite that way. better connectivity -> destroyed physical limits on group size -> groups not only get larger but also more ideologically homogenous because they're moderated by a central authority like how physical crowds are moderated -> people make friends more easily in those homogenous groups OR get kicked and start their own group, which also has the potential to get larger and more homogenous without limit -> groups have larger differences and clash harder More friends is a symptom rather than a cause.
- ZebusJesus 1y agogroup think has always been dangerous, 1984 come to mind
- gtsop 1y ago[dead]
- VWWHFSfQ 1y agoYou can have 10 "friends". 3 close ones. Anything larger than that and you are way out of your depth and can't possibly maintain those relationships in a meaningful, personal way.
- HPsquared 1y agoDefinitely. Close relationships of any kind involve a lot of investment and "costly signals".
- lukebechtel 1y agoI favor the theory that polarization is due to decreasing attention spans, effectively preventing us from appropriately considering nuance. Related: https://open.substack.com/pub/josephheath/p/populism-fast-and-slow https://open.substack.com/pub/josephheath/p/populism-fast-an...
- th0ma5 1y agoThat's one of Chomsky's major points for decades.
- lukebechtel 1y agoembarrassingly haven't dug into Chomsky, this is another update towards me doing so soon!
- DavidPiper 1y agoOT: As someone in the same camp, does anyone have any recommendations on where would be best to start?
- rfrey 1y agoYou can start with his recent Russian apologia where he blames the U.S. and Ukraine for forcing Russia to invade Ukraine. That might provide some context when you read one of his books.
- th0ma5 1y agoYeah to be fair I dunno about that one yeesh
- Der_Einzige 1y agoChomsky did so much good in his past but when leftism comes up he becomes stupid. He only realized the Khmer Rouge and pol pot were evil far far far after the rest of the world did. Anti-authoritarian leftists getting baited into supporting authoritarian fake leftists: name a better combo. Chomsky needs to STFU about politics and go back to linguistics - though he’s not popular in linguistics right now either.
- almosthere 1y ago[flagged]
- jeffbee 1y agoGo make a list of the felony theft threshold in all fifty states then come back here and post where $950 falls among them.
- almosthere 1y agohttps://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-defense/crime-penalties/petty-theft-texas-penalties-defense https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/resources/criminal-def... In Texas even if you steal $100 you can go to jail for 180 days. The nuance in CA (before it recently changed) was that there was absolutely NOTHING you could do if they stole 3 lawnmowers. Besides why fight this? You already know you're wrong.
- jeffbee 1y agoThe penalty for misdemeanor larceny in California is also 6 months in county jail and that has been true continuously since Spanish rule to the present day. The difference between Texas and California is that in California you can do 3 years in state prison for stealing $1000 and that is not the case in Texas.
- almosthere 1y agoMaybe the penalty written down, but not in practice. And that's the one that matters. Also in Texas you can also be shot after 6pm by the shopkeep for stealing and killed and that's 100% legal.
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago> The polarization is due to progressive politics messing up the country. Yeah that's why the most progressive areas of the country are the ones struggling the most, right. Like Mississippi, Appalachia, Arkansas... Maybe if you guys would actually deal with some of your issues instead of bashing your bibles your kids wouldn't be running the fuck out of your towns as soon as they're able to, but I'm sure it's still some poor Portlandian black transwoman's fault for being alive while not knowing you exist or whatever, and definitely not the ideological positions of everyone you've elected in the last 5 decades.
- mothballed 1y agoUnderstanding other cultures and giving me a chance to experience them has always been the quickest way to get me to become far more stereotypical / bigoted. I am willing to be open and idealistic about most any idea / ethnicity / culture but once I actually face it in real life and question if I want my kids exposed to that, then the rubber hits the road. The internet has accelerated this.
- johnny22 1y agoI've found the opposite of that. I've found good people from all sorts of cultures and countries.
- henriquemaia 1y agoI'm like you and with you. I've lived in several countries in 3 continents now, and the more I get to know different peoples, the more I feel we're all the same—albeit stuck in these almost kaleidoscopic ways of outwardly displaying the very same humanity. Perhaps OP got fixated on the collective differences instead of seeing through them. Perhaps.
- mothballed 1y agoThe major difference in the more extreme case were I was shot at, or had a gun put to my head, or was caught in between a knife fight, or systematically on a regular basis saw people getting the shit beat out of them. Which I acknowledge can happen anywhere, but such trauma is not so easily rationalized when considering what I'd like my kids exposed to and after viscerally experiencing it in real life. In any case, "I've found good people from all sorts of cultures and countries" is something I've definitely found to be true, and I don't view that as mutually exclusive. The trouble being, the amount of bad things a certain sector of people get away with can vary a lot depending on where you are and what the cultural response and incentives to that is.
- grdomzal 1y ago> The sharp rise in both polarization and the number of close friends occurred between 2008 and 2010—precisely when social media platforms and smartphones first achieved widespread adoption. This technological shift may have fundamentally changed how people connect with each other, indirectly promoting polarization. Indirectly? Seems to me that this is far more likely the "direct" cause, given what we know about the psychology around algorithmic feeds. Also - I'm not sure if I missed it in the article, but did they define what they mean by "close relationship" means? I'd be very curious to know if a purely online relationship is counted and how this may also contribute to the observations made.
- patrickmay 1y agoThe article said that a close relationship is one where the other person can influence your views. I didn't dig into the details to see how that was measured.
- cowpig 1y agoThe study linked at the beginning of this article, and the two listed under "More information" at the bottom all take me to a page with the error "DOI Not Found" Given that the main (only significant) fact cited in the article goes against everything else I've read, I would like to see the actual study and how it came to the conclusion that the number of close friends has doubled. Here are some sources that appear to contradict this article: https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/ https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-a... https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/250617/dq250617d-eng.htm https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/250617/dq250... https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11288408/#pone.0305834.ref015 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11288408/#pone.0305...
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoThis might be it? https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1004008107 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1004008107
- cowpig 1y agoThat's dated July 19, 2010
- DavidPiper 1y agoThe fact that we have more close friends on average is a novel and surprising observation to me. Very worthy of investigation. But, how is moving from a circle of 2 close friends to a circle of 4 close friends a significant enough jump to "fuel polarization" on a societal level? There's also a 10-year gap between USA (and other countries' data points too) that covers the span of the whole alleged "aligned trend". It feels a little bit like the authors just went "Look! Two data trends moving in the same direction! Causal?!" More seriously, I would love to see a much deeper dive on: - Technological and associated psychological trends that might be causing greater polarisation (plenty of existing data here) - How an increase in close friends can co-exist with an apparent loneliness epidemic (plenty of existing data here too)
- MattGaiser 1y ago> But, how is moving from a circle of 2 close friends to a circle of 4 close friends a significant enough jump to "fuel polarization" on a societal level? You add 2 close friends and to fit them in, axe 10 weaker ones.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> You add 2 close friends and to fit them in, axe 10 weaker ones I did this after Covid. Consciously started declining invitations from acquaintances, and instead making time and travel to see close friends. Would never go back.
- DavidPiper 1y agoIn this case it sounds like the polarisation is fueled by the axing and not the adding?
- bicx 1y agoI’m more interested in how people determine who they trust, and the parameters by which humans decide to trust someone. I would wager that people are shit at determining trustworthiness based on limited information (like social media representations). In the old days before social media, you got to know people in person, and decades ago, most of the people you knew were likely people you grew up around. You knew that person’s background, how they treated people, what their family was like, and what likely influences them as a person. So much of how we process trustworthiness is how we perceive the motives of the speaker. With shallower friendships and parasocial relationships, we want to feel connected but really lack any good context that you need to actually know who you’re listening to.
- squigz 1y agoA person's trustworthiness has always been based more on perception though, even if you were familiar with more of their history - that's how you end up with members of a community who are perfectly kind people but are ostracized because they're perceived as strange and untrustworthy in some way; it's also how you end up with members of a community who have demonstrated a lack of trustworthiness continuing to be trusted, because they can appear trustworthy and persuade others to trust them despite the prior evidence.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoParasocial relationships are more analogous to the old priestly/shamanic to tribesman relationships. A person more or less removed from the direct social experience that has their own hidden motives and meanings, as well as strong incentive to maintain their position in the group dynamic as someone to look up towards. Funny how humans evolved such to have such a predilection for finding these few charismatic people to uplift and throw their whole lot behind damned any other logic. While also having a small subset of people preferring to take the reins themselves and be the charismatic leader either for good or ill intent. And it has been that way in our species since long before recorded history. Almost like queen bee to worker bee dynamics in terms of population structure but perhaps less rigid. The mutation rate of charismatic leaders vs followers happens to be “just right” by some mechanism. Too many of either case and group dynamics fall apart. If we think of the whole population as a meta organism up a few levels of abstraction from the genetic level, but still bound by its laws generally, some mechanism must have evolved to carefully regulate dosage of these varying neurotypes in the population much like how genes evolved downstream, upstream, or midstream dosage control mechanisms to modulate protein levels in the cell for biological function. Perhaps social structure is self reinforcing through incentives and entropy.
- stevage 1y ago> When people are more connected with each other, they encounter different opinions more frequently. This inevitably leads to more conflict and thus greater societal polarization If this is true, it is counterintuitive, and runs against the prevailing narrative that living within your bubble and not interacting with opposing viewpoints is what causes polarisation. I thought cities were supposed to be less polarised because people can't help encountering other viewpoints.
- philjw 1y agoI noticed this when I studied abroad in the Netherlands — a highly educated, slightly more digitalized country than my own. Politics there splintered into micro-parties, each “hardly exchanging between bubbles,” as the study puts it. First impressions were warm, but dates always ended with splitting the bill. Friend groups felt just as closed off, except for Dutchies who had just as me lived abroad before, learned to bridge cultures and still are my closest friends today. Digitalization and the pursuit of perfect information seemed to invite more binary thinking — and with it, more opportunities to disagree every single day. Meanwhile, other forces found easy consensus on simpler, more immediate issues: cheap gas, housing, grocery prices, job security, immigration. Complex, long-horizon topics like the climate crisis rarely stood a chance.
- bear141 1y agoWhen I was in Amsterdam I was with a group of acquaintances of a friend who lived there. One of them offered me an extra piece of pizza they had when I showed up. When the bill came, they asked me for the exact percentage of the bill that that piece of pizza cost. First time experiencing something like that. I also offered to buy several people a drink while I was there. This was received every time with suspicion and I was treated as if I was trying to gain something transactional besides a simple friendship in the moment. It was an interesting part of that society to experience.
- Der_Einzige 1y agoNordic social norms like this get made fun of all the time by westerners and southern Europeans. A lot of people will take the crappy socioeconomic situations of non Nordic countries just so that they can have warm relations with their families and a culture that doesn’t hate loud noises.
- eucryphia 1y agoYes, the The People's Front of Judea and Judean People's Front are irreconcilable.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- morshu9001 1y agoSee ncase.me "the wisdom of crowds"
- nativeit 1y ago> What disappears as a result is a societal baseline of tolerance—a development that could contribute to the long-term erosion of democratic structures. To prevent societies from increasingly fragmenting, Thurner emphasizes the importance of learning early how to engage with different opinions and actively cultivating tolerance. That could be a problem, considering how the push back to "actively cultivating tolerance" has unfolded so far.
- spencerflem 1y agoThey’re illegally sending the military into the streets to oppress us. I don’t think tolerance is really the move
- billfor 1y agoCorrelation is not causation. For example, 2008 was also the beginning of the Obama tern. He was pretty polarizing, even in those days.
- cnoolean 1y agoFor years, I have had very few close friends, fewer than mentioned as previous average, I’ve withdrawn almost completely from social media, and I’m still polarized, because there are only two major political sides in the U.S., and which news source you listen to drives your opinion.
- Huxley1 1y agoI've had a similar experience. The bigger my social circle gets and the more people I follow, the easier it is to end up surrounded by a single perspective, especially on work-related topics. At first, I thought I was broadening my view, but it turned out I was just reinforcing my existing preferences. Do you make a point of keeping people with different opinions in your network, or do you find it more comfortable to stay in circles where everyone thinks alike?
- Slava_Propanei 1y ago[dead]
- _3u10 1y ago4 western countries with aging populations, what they really found is that people are getting older, have more free time for friends, who are now interest oriented rather than work or school related.
- fragmede 1y agoYes. The same Internet that was going to connect the gay teenager in gay-hostile territory like rural Alabama or Iran and save them from suicide, it unfortunately turns out can also connect actual neo-Nazis and KKK members across the globe.
- psychoslave 1y agoSo is there an actual paper? As is it's hard to evaluate if there is anything substantial to get out of these claims. First time for me to meet with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity_Science_Hub https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity_Science_Hub Is that cause or correlation? Like, if people are more polarized, there are more likely to have wider ground to sympathize. Less throttle in opinion divergences, so they can deal with more social exchanges as the only interactions are endless smooth easy agreements within their social bubbles.
- exotica 1y agoSome theories on polarization I've collected so far that are interesting to think about: 1. Fragmented Realities and Epistemic Closure Society has splintered into separate informational worlds. People no longer disagree about interpretations — they disagree about basic facts. Every event is reinterpreted through group narratives, while algorithms and media ecosystems reinforce self-sealing belief systems that reject contradictory evidence. Truth has become tribal. ⸻ 2. Complexity, Distrust, and the Need for Simplicity Modern systems — from technology to institutions — are too complex for most to grasp. This creates epistemic anxiety and fuels distrust. People fill gaps in understanding with emotionally satisfying stories or conspiracies that reaffirm their group’s worldview, simplifying chaos into moral clarity. ⸻ 3. Freedom Without Shared Norms Unlimited freedom of expression, especially online, allows individuals to curate entire realities — news, values, communities, even moral codes. With no shared gatekeepers or social guardrails, this leads to radical pluralism without cohesion, making dialogue and compromise feel impossible. ⸻ 4. Identity Through Opposition People now define themselves less by what they love than by what they hate. Belonging is sustained through shared enemies, not shared ideals. When external foes disappear, movements turn inward, targeting internal dissenters in purity spirals. This “negative partisanship” keeps polarization alive even in victory. ⸻ 5. Homogeneity Within, Division Between Within each ideological camp, members become increasingly uniform, while differences between camps grow unbridgeable. Social media and online subcultures create homogeneous echo chambers, replacing the moderating influence of local, mixed communities. ⸻ 6. Moral Absolutism and Emotional Reasoning Disagreement has become moralized. Positions are interpreted as ethical declarations, not intellectual arguments — “if you question this policy, you must be evil.” Complex moral issues are reduced to emotional reactions (“yay” or “boo”), eliminating space for nuance and ensuring every debate feels existential. ⸻ 7. Fear of Ostracism and the Loss of Honest Discourse Individuals self-censor to avoid social punishment. Within tribes, dissent signals disloyalty; silence becomes survival. Even when people privately know inconsistencies in their group’s logic, they publicly conform, reinforcing collective delusion. ⸻ 8. Purity Spirals and Internal Cannibalization Movements built on moral fervor tend to devour their own. The demand for ideological purity leads to factionalism and self-destruction — evident in both political extremes. Each cycle of purification shrinks the movement and intensifies radicalism. ⸻ 9. Outrage Economies and Performative Extremes Attention, not truth, is the currency of the digital age. Algorithms reward anger, certainty, and spectacle, pushing participants toward theatrical extremity. Outrage becomes addictive, and moderation becomes invisible. ⸻ 10. Collapse of Shared Identity Both left and right have lost sources of positive collective identity. The left often ties self-worth to guilt or systemic critique; the right has turned against institutions it once championed. Without shared symbols or pride, all that remains is mutual resentment and moral posturing. ⸻ 11. Self-Directed Polarization and Moral Competition Especially in progressive spaces, moral status is signaled through self-critique and guilt, producing competition over who can appear most virtuous. This inward moral warfare fragments coalitions and deepens alienation, even among ideological allies. ⸻ 12. Excessive Individualism and Identity Nihilism When every norm, archetype, and tradition is deconstructed, people lose a sense of meaning and belonging. The absence of shared cultural frameworks drives individuals to seek identity in micro-tribes — often online — where belonging depends on rigid ideological loyalty. ⸻ 13. Perception Distortion and Amplified Extremes Media and social networks exaggerate the prevalence of fringe behaviors and views, making each side believe the other is dominated by extremists. This illusion of extremity fuels fear and rage, even when most people are moderate. ⸻ 14. Cynicism, Performance, and the Collapse of Grace Public moral life has become performative. People perform virtue or outrage online instead of acting constructively in reality. Every good deed is questioned as clout-seeking; every mistake is eternal. This erodes trust, forgiveness, and the possibility of moral growth. ⸻ 15. Technology and the Future of Polarization AI and algorithmic personalization amplify division by creating individually tailored echo chambers. Combined with emotional fatigue (“outrage burnout”), this could produce a paradoxical future: a society both numb and hyper-polarized — disengaged yet unbridgeably divided.
- dpe82 1y agoCorrelation ≠ Causation
- flave 1y ago> And this increase happened suddenly, between 2008 and 2010 Occam’s Razor tells me that it’s almost certainly linked to the near-total failure of the economic system (and the very slow recovery outside specific US cities).
- mgh2 1y agoIt is obviously social media: more connections does not equally mean social interactions - people substituted costly and hard in-person for cheap and easy online interactions, with AI optimization fueling the polarization.
- mikeiz404 1y ago> It is obviously social media I get why social media could possibly be the cause but what makes you so certain it is the cause or the largest contributing factor?
- portaouflop 1y agoIt is just as obviously late stage capitalism - as everyone is busy working 10-12 hours just to survive you have zero time left for costly and hard in-person interactions.
- teamonkey 1y agoIt would correlate well with the social media boom in the late 2000s. Digg, Reddit, Twitter, Google's purchase and aggressive expansion of Youtube, etc. 4Chan. When did algorithmic recommendations (by which I mean injecting content into your feed to maintain attention, rather than an attempt to rank by quality) become commonplace? ISTR Youtube was being criticised for pushing conspiracy theories in the late 2000s, but I could be misremembering the timeline.
- procaryote 1y agoInstinctively this seems like it could be a common cause Social Media getting big → larger perceived friend groups Social Media getting big → more polarisation rather than the larger friend groups → more polarisation causality hypothesised in the article
- mikeiz404 1y agoYea or also: Social Media getting big → larger perceived friend groups Social Media getting big OR screen time increasing OR phones preferencing more limited forms of communication OR … → more polarization Maybe I missed it but it would have been helpful to know which confounds had been ruled out. It could be due to a change in the PEW polling or the polling questions staying the same but the definition of terms shifting over time which caused the perceived increase in polarization. Or even the researchers’ definition of polarization which was stated as an increase in people stably identifying as either liberal or conservative. It is worth noting the article did say the PEW polling is supposed to be a stable source of data.
- dominicrose 1y agoSocial media is clearly a culprit. People say things on social media they wouldn't say directly to your face. It's normal to be shy in front of real people and shyness is a social feature not a bug. Even those who don't shy away from taboo topics, are more likely to be convincing in real life than with text. Less shyness = more differences of opinion expressed More convincing = less division
- mikeiz404 1y agoAnyone know where to find the paper? The DOI in the article is being reported as invalid. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2517530122 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2517530122
- motoxpro 1y agoPeople talked for a long time about filter bubbles. I think we are realizing that it was actually GOOD to be in a filter bubble (neighborhood, school, a few close friends, etc.) It is not that people have wildly different views all of a sudden, it is that being exposed to views we used to be protected against is really unpleasant. "The world isn't so bad" -> "The world is very bad"
- black_13 1y ago[dead]
- naikrovek 1y ago> Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization Anyone who has ever been to public school knows this in their bones.
- xchip 1y ago> Study finds growing social circles **may** fuel polarization Note that this study MAY not be accurate
- brador 1y agoSelf reported through a questionnaire. Pass.
- eleveriven 1y agoFeels like another case where tech enabled something faster than society could process it
- dudewtf10 1y agoLol what caused this, it couldn’t have been a major financial collapse that happened around 2008, that’s what radicalised me. It must be caused by people talking to each other.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]