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Could Removing Social Media Metrics Reduce Polarization?
Social media reflects and refracts a divided society, but eliminating the ‘like’ button could help bring us back together
Because I write regularly about populist and far-right politics, I follow a bunch of people on Twitter who hold controversial views, both on the left and the right. I knew this might turn my feed into a waking nightmare, but I also thought following people with a range of views might give me a more balanced perspective.
As it turns out, research on this is inconclusive. Some studies show that being exposed to perspectives diametrically opposed to your own might actually harden your own views, and more than ever, people with differing views seem to inhabit entirely separate self-contained realities.
Clicking like in response to something is an emotional response; it does not necessarily endorse it as true or accurate.
When social media started to take off about a decade ago, millions of ordinary people suddenly had a public platform from which to spout their opinions. This promised to be a revolutionary democratizing force. But it has also meant that racist, sexist, and homophobic views became…
