Social media 'echo chamber' causing political tunnel vision, study finds

You say "it leads to apathy" as if people would have done anything differently if they knew then what they knew now.

Frankly apathy might even be helpful, imagine how better off the remain campaign would have come off if people like Bob Geldoff had felt apathetic towards the whole thing.

The issue with bubbles is less the shared beliefs of the group and more the reasons the group ends up forming in the first place. Internet bubbles are not the same as real life bubbles, they're much more about identifying themselves against something else. For an example, go look at the various feminist/MRA subreddits and see how many of the posts are about shitting on an outgroup (implicitly or explicitly) vs how much are about the actual subject matter, the ratio is fucking absurd in favour of anti-outgroup posts.

Although different groups of people reach different conclusions, their patterns of behaviour mirror eachother, meaning they're motivated by the same thing. The same thing funnels people into identity based bubbles, not because the social media infrastructure happens to exist to accommodate the bubbles, but because the bubbles exist and NEED to be accommodated NOW. I'll leave people to guess what the "same thing" that's motivating people is, but what I'm saying is that internet politics isn't real politics and is more like a giant therapy session. Why did an entire generation of teenagers come of age seemingly in dire need of therapy?

When we say "social media is responsible" or "bubbles are the problem", we're denying that there's an existing problem and attempting to (poorly) treat symptoms, we're denying the idea that maybe social media is specific to us as a people, as if say, the Vikings, would have taken an interest in twitter in any way. We're falling for the progress meme so hard.

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