Posted on 08/27/2014 10:13:55 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
The Internet might be a useful tool for activists and organizers, in episodes from the Arab Spring to the Ice Bucket Challenge. But over all, it has diminished rather than enhanced political participation, according to new data.
Social media, like Twitter and Facebook, has the effect of tamping down diversity of opinion and stifling debate about public affairs. It makes people less likely to voice opinions, particularly when they think their views differ from those of their friends, according to a report published Tuesday by researchers at Pew Research Center and Rutgers University.
(snip) The Internet, it seems, is contributing to the polarization of America, as people surround themselves with people who think like them and hesitate to say anything different. Internet companies magnify the effect, by tweaking their algorithms to show us more content from people who are similar to us.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Total BS.
Maybe the dumbest thing I have read in a long while.
Facts have neither a conservative or liberal bias.
I’ve been unfriended by a lot of liberals. And it kinda makes my wife cringe when our daughter in law posts something pro-homosexual marriage and I fire both barrels.
I take very seriously the axiom that all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing. I NEVER let pro-homosexual marriage, Pro-Islam and other statements go on facebook uninhibited. And because I know more and have at my fingertips far more info than most of these facebook nitwits, I shut them down pretty hard.
It’s especially fun when the liberal “alpha dogs” jump in and try to take me on. They simply don’t have truth and the facts on their side, but are not used to someone who will fight back and knows what he’s talking about. Too many of them are like the upper classman arguing with freshmen. When a real adult steps in against them they go down fast - and often gloriously.
We all should be doing it.
duh!....why do you think Liberals invented it?
Social media stifles debate by creating bubble chambers. I have had liberal friends and relatives unfriend me because they were not interested in debate, let alone correcting inaccuracies in their memes that I pointed out.
Social media has informed many, many millions of normal humans that they are not abnormal, as the communist MSM and academia have insisted. In fact, the real abnormals are a minute percentage of the population, deploying all kinds of smoke and mirrors trying to terrorize the vast majority into embracing their sick, warped, bizarre, liberal behaviors.
People are waking up, thanks to the internet, and many of them are 'unfriending' even family members who think differently on the most critical issues. It's OK. Blood really is not thicker than values and principles.
Facts have a definite conservative bias, going by the definitions of “conservative” and “liberal”. Conservatives may not always be right, but liberals are always wrong. (This is because everything is political to liberals.)
The article’s thesis is definitely hogwash (liberals have pestered conservatives since Eve ate the apple), but one could reasonably argue that the Internet encourages impressionable teenagers to engage in stupid liberal behaviors.
Are people less likely to express “dissenting views” on social media than in real-life, face-to-face situations, as the research claims? That seems unlikely to me. The Internet is notorious for inducing people to go “overboard” and say things they would not say face-to-face. So I suspect there is some sort of agenda behind this research.
No need to spell out. In research/university studies, there is only the PC doctrine.
Most don’t want ‘debate’, they just want to ‘convert’ your pov.
It’s really not BS. Facts have absolutely nothing to do with what they’re writing about here.
There’s social pressure to which most people succumb to express currently popular opinions on social matters, especially, now, gay marriage. Daring to contradict a statement about the wonderfulness of gay marriage instantly earns the poster a ‘homophobic’ label. You will see friends and sometimes family “unfriend” you, or argue, however irrationally, with you.
The Internet, if anything, gives people the perfect platform to abuse others without remorse. Most people simply don't want to engage with anonymous people unless they can find common ground with them, but that's also the case in real life. The people who do want to engage with anonymous people (with no common ground) generally want to do so maliciously, and you are much less likely to face the consequences of your malice on the Internet.
oh, I think peer pressure is amplified in social media. Let’s say you have 100 friends: all of them (can) see your interaction with Liberal Friend. If 50 or even 5 of the 100 are liberals, you are potentially alienating that 5 or 50. Similarly a liberal can alienate his/her conservative friends/family.
One of my nephews is extremely conservative, and a niece is correspondingly liberal. They barely speak any more as a result of Facebook. It’s gone beyond just ‘unfriending’ someone with differing views. Just a pity.
Personally, I keep away (mostly) from politics on FB, get enough right here. And I stay away (mostly) from religion at FR. Works well for the blood pressure.
My Facebook friends express their opinions all the time, and I differ with many of them on most issues and all of them on one issue or another.
I was just thinking about this today before reading this article. I decided to just put cute little animal post on
fb and stick with Free Republic for discussions of current events and politics. Very few people I know on fb even watch the news.
I think I am going to post this article on fb
Right, so much basic misunderstanding and personal attacks.
Sometime before the 2012 election (I joined in 2010), I started "unfollowing"/"hiding" the posts from people I know with who don't have much sense or tolerance. A few were even unfriended altogether but not many.
FB doesn't even show you all of the content that you opt into anymore, why should you have to suffer "interweb group debate" posts (when because you participate in them then dominate your visible news feed)?
There is name calling and huffing here, but at least there are generally some basic accepted facts and citations when asked.
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