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Let's start with the issue of misinformation. Social Media allows people to view information fast and easily, we can google almost anything yet choose to believe the 1st thing we see without fact-checking. Why is that? According to an article by Pat Norman on the Medium titled “Why Facebook arguments are the worst”, social media increases the Dunning-Kruger effect. This effect is based on the idea that people feel like they know more than what they do, so the less they know the more inclined they are to feel like they do. This effect has been increased through social media and since social media is also a way we can perform our identity it is common to see people express what they think they know and neglect to consider the ways that information might be wrong. People are more likely to get on Facebook rant about how terrible they think a candidate is without fact-checking themselves because they genuinely believe they are right. A quote that I love from this article because it was right on the money is, “Experts doubt themselves. Idiots don’t.” A study done by the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University found that social media also decreases our ability to figure out what information is irrelevant or not. With a mix of cognitive biases and the Kruger effect, we can see why it is hard to get people to think rationally about what information they are retaining.
Another negative impact that social media casts on our democracy is through a concept we talked about in class called spectacle which can make us feel like we are powerless when used in intimidating manners. Spectacles can be used in many ways but the main one we will focus on is the Social Media spectacle. When social media spectacle is used it results in distraction from what is currently reality. Since most people that use social media don’t pay attention to the origin of the information and quickly assume that the information shown is the truth it is easy to see why this is effective. Most of the time when spectacle is used by Politicians it doesn’t direct attention to where the information is coming from but rather the message they are conveying instead. Carson Kay mentions in his writing on Social Media Spectacle, “Social media spectacle allows for the sharing of issues and abstract distribution of opinions without explicitly associating the architect with a position” With a majority of the population already holding some sort of cognitive bias, spectacle when used by politicians enhances the use of shortcut thinking with individuals who use social media more consistently than those who don’t.
The content that is produced on social media when it comes to politics has created a more polarized nation. It has created less room for conversations that used to be held more traditionally in person. For example, debating on Facebook does not equate to what it is like to debate in person because you simply can’t communicate as effectively online. We live in times where there is less face-to-face communication and more communication through social media where it is easier for trolling to happen. Trolling by definition is to make offensive posts online in order to upset someone but to our democracy, it is much more than that. How might insulting someone online be a threat to democracy? Well, the more we attack our politicians, friends, and family online for expressing what they believe the less room we have for open conversations. It causes people to shut down out of fear or abuse or isolation. Cancel culture is a trend where we outcast people who we don’t agree with or those who have made a mistake. We take a no remorse sort of approach when it comes to people who might have opposing views. This is dangerous because it pushes us to be more divided.
So, bringing us back to the question at hand do you think that social media is going to cause a decline in democracy? Some people believe that it unifies more than divides. If you take a deep dive into the issue, evidence points out that it has made America more polarized and divided than ever.
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