Sign up for Meridian’s Free Newsletter, please CLICK HERE

The following was written for the Sutherland Institute by Miriam Merrill.

It’s impossible to ignore the extreme political polarization in America. An article by Pew suggests that the values of the American people are more polarized now than at any time in the past 25 years.

Of course it is possible to maintain civility and find common ground while defending one’s beliefs, but it seems to be rare.

Are unseen forces pushing us toward such polarization? How can there be such a plethora of subcultures that all believe their philosophy is the most moral, humane and correct? To find an answer to this question, we need not look further than our fingertips.

While the internet caters to a wide spectrum of users, we are exposed to only a small, narrow slice of it. Essentially everything that we view online, from Netflix suggestions to Google search results, are “hand picked” for us based on information collected from every minute detail of our web activity. Countless algorithms collect even the most casual of our web exchanges to curate similar content that we’re expected to enjoy equally.

“Trending” news stories on Facebook are personalized based on pages you’ve liked. There are no checks put into place to ensure accuracy of articles; some are completely false. Additionally, every single Facebook and Instagram post is given a relevancy score according to your activity. That means that you see content from the same users over and over because the network has done the dirty work of sifting through content for you. This ensures that your few daily scrolls will be full of comfortable content. These are just two illustrations of a bigger problem.

These algorithms may seem harmless enough, but a majority of social media users now rely on Twitter and Facebook as their primary news resources. In fact, around 60 percent of all millennials (those born from 1981-96) rely on Facebook for political news over any other news source. This results in echo chambers, where our already existing biases are continually reaffirmed through a personalized Internet experience.

Jaron Lanier, author of You Are Not a Gadget, warns of this prevalent social trend:

“People tend to get into this echo chamber where more and more of what they see conforms to the idea of who some software thinks they are. … You start to become more and more like the image of you because that is what you are seeing.”

This can easily be illustrated by searching for a current event or debatable topic on Google and comparing your search results with a friend’s – results will differ slightly, yet significantly. If you’ve ever strongly supported a political candidate and wondered how anyone intelligent could feel differently than you, this might be part of the reason.

Once the social network algorithms know who and what we like, we are consistently fed reaffirming information that fosters pride in our beliefs and avoids potential for offense. Often, dissenting views that would help us create well-rounded, educated opinions are completely left out of our viewing experience, and it is all carefully done in a way that we don’t even realize. This does little to ease our polarized opinions, as we rarely see content which challenges us. Rather, our electronic experience becomes a safe spot for us, regardless of the actual validity or correctness of our beliefs.

Despite the prevalent factors working against us, it is possible to develop a balanced view of the political world amid extreme polarization. Solutions include:

  • Refrain from “unfriending” or “unfollowing” those those who civilly post in opposition to your beliefs. Allowing yourself to contemplate their suggestions will foster well-rounded opinions of your own.
  • Fact-check your “trending” stories before you allow them to influence your political opinions. Snopes is a valuable resource for checking the validity of viral news.
  • Visit multiple news sites to develop a more educated overview of a particular current event. AllSides collects articles from the left, right and center for any given topic, allowing readers to get multiple sides of the story.

Community-driven solutions provide the strongest foundation for solid public policy. These solutions can only be created through elevated, civil dialogue between those who disagree. It will take humility and openness to realize our own view of the world isn’t the only one that exists. However, as we seek to truly understand those around us – even those whose views may seem totally irrational initially – we will be better suited to influence and change the world for the better, one social media post at a time.

Miriam Merrill is a policy intern with Sutherland Institute.