Social Media Bias
There are now social scientists now referring to the 21st century as “The Social Media Revolution”. As little as 20 years ago the term “social media” had no meaning to the vast majority of people, yet now in westernized countries the vast majority of people use social media at least occasionally and many have accounts on multiple social media platforms and use social media as a primary means of communication for both social and work communication, as well as listing it as their principal method of getting news and staying up to date on current events. If you doubt the importance of social media consider this- the president of the United States uses a social media platform on a near daily basis to engage the public about US policies.
Proponents will tout the ease of use, ability of people to maintain connections to friends and family that were lost in the past, Fast and easy communication using the visually centered methods most popular in today’s fast paced lifestyle, a way to share ideas across a large audience, and ideas spread based on popularity and usefulness of that information due to the nature of a platform centered around sharing information that is important to an individual, etc. etc.
While these things are true, or at least in part true, it is ignoring a very large component of how this information is in fact being shared and viewed. It has even further eroded “news” and “important information” into soundbites – short sentences or a few words and a catchy picture that are intended to instill a feeling or emotion rather than a fact or summary of facts. Further, it not only enables but in fact encourages the dissolution of actual news and information down into short out of context bits of information that can impart any feeling or emotion intended by the writer, mush as statistics were often misquoted in the past by leaving out key pieces of information while asserting only a single seemingly overwhelming “fact”.
There are other assorted arguments against the rampant use of social media- most commonly the argument about “takes away from true person to person “communication that are often lamented. But it is hard to argue if you are talking to a high school friend or cousin that now lives 1000 miles that prior to social media would never possibly be interacting with at all then it does in fact add as much as take away form personal connections. The real issue is not in what is being said or the connections one can make, the issue is in how much the platforms leave unsaid in regular communications.
Whether it is the political soundbite taken out of context to imply a completely different meaning, or the personal “story” being told from individuals to other individuals that only show the highlight reels of a life, social media leaves at least as much unsaid as it ever tells its frequent users. The “parts left out” when combined with the very intentional selectiveness of the information being conveyed has made social media into the most divisive and opinionated (while remaining essentially fact free) method of communication ever devised.
The issues compound –
1. Social media being a primary source of news and information for millions of users while in reality all this information consists of is opinion and a diluted form of fact showing only what a person thinks benefits them or their point of view.
2. The platforms themselves use algorithms designed to help users communicate more with people with similar points of view or to introduce them to third party content that agrees with the users demonstrated opinions / points of view.
3. Users are encouraged to “turn off posts” or “stop following” any member or third party content that they personally do not agree with, and substitute words like “not interested” as a reason to “is offensive or hateful” when doing so.
4. The internal algorithms further only show members that a member frequently interacts with by “liking” their posts in the main feeds of its members. A person may have 500 “friends” but the algorithms limit displayed posts to the 25-50 “friends” that this person most often “likes” posts on.
Soon, social media believers are led to believe not only are their opinions correct, but that their opinion is part of a vast majority. They get opinions they are calling news, assigning it the same value as unbiased facts (or greater value since it is “facts” supported by people they know or trust), and every persons feeds they see or third party content piece displays the same viewpoint making people more narrow minded and les able to see other points of view or even understand that other points of view and legitimate arguments for those points of view even exist.
This can be particularly detrimental to youth and students that have traditionally found peer pressure to be a huge influencer of behavior and thoughts. When they start to feel like everybody else feels a certain way due to the way the world looks to them as displayed on their social media platforms, all original thought and ideas become clear indicators of “something wrong with me” and therefore something to be suppressed. This is a worldwide phenomenon at this point- as the dangers of social media are expounded on in most places, while not being changed or addressed in a significant way.
If we have truly entered the “The Social Media Revolution” then we have entered a revolution where people are taught that other viewpoints either do not exist or are bad, and that discussion or intellectual fact based discourse on divergent ideas is something to be avoided as potentially “offensive or hate inspired”. This does not bring about understanding and tolerance and wisdom, but rather fosters and environment of distrust, bias, and perhaps most detrimental of all, decision making and thought processes ruled by emotions rather than facts.