You scroll down to see what seems to be the entire internet taking two opposing sides. A war of comments back and forth with no middle ground. It’s like watching the Red Sea part for Moses. 

Polarization has been increasing with the rise of social media. Broadly termed into common binaries, two opposing groups on the internet are often categorized as “leftists” vs.“rightists”. “Gen-Zs” vs. “Boomers” and “atheists” vs. “devout Christians” are also common antonyms in describing divisions in media discourse. Surely though, the incredibly diverse human race does not always fit into two categories of thought. The advent of media and its accessibility should theoretically increase the interconnectivity of these different perspectives. Why the Sea of Moses then?

“Echo chamber” is a phenomenon where one's beliefs are propped up and reinforced inside a closed loop that is insulated from rebuttal. Echo chambers in social media are created by carefully crafted media algorithms that maximize users’ app time and thus profit for Big Tech companies. While we scroll mindlessly through our feeds, our activity is carefully analyzed to determine our political and ideological position. Exploiting the psychological philosophy that humans feel good to be told they are right, the algorithm personalizes each viewer’s feed with content that would most likely be addicting for them. We are flooded with two types of content: content from people that agree with us, and content that disagrees with us but with poor arguments that reassure us that we are right, and they are wrong.

For instance, say, you are pro-choice. Your feed is ornamented with intelligent pro-choice activists, well-designed posts for pro-choice, and glorious photos of pro-choice protests; the comment section is full of passionate pro-choice users who heroically fight ignorant comments. Your feed will also be dotted with posts exposing a specific trial that made an underage victim give birth to a child from sexual assault, and the next slide would likely be of the 40 white male senators in conservative suits and smiles that voted for that state laws a decade back. On the flip side, say you are pro-life. Your feed is ornamented with women who argue they will have unprotected sex and continuously get abortions, and names like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crower destroying stuttering progressives punctuated with meme music. 

The internet becomes a place for mocking and caricaturization instead of discussion, where the opposing argument is immediately undercut under the pretense that the caricature is foolish. Donald Trump is a big example of caricaturization, where his character and media personality have propagated so much prejudice that many users will see the slightest association with “Trump” and strongly disagree with whatever is said even before the mouth opens. Similar is the example of “radical feminists” on the other side of the spectrum. Arguments are shut down even before they are heard. 

Strawmanning the other side’s arguments have a large presence in mainstream media as well. The concise, catchy nature of viral posts means that nuance is sacrificed for marketability. In choosing small quotes, statistics, and events to report on, the public has the sweet opportunity to deliberately select facts to base their desired conclusions. This looks like leaving out details of a court case or choosing a picture that insinuates a false context. By replacing the real subject of the argument with a false, advantageous one, the post is able to give the impression of rebutting an argument that is not addressed to begin with. Come to think of it, such logic is no different to “winning” a debate by insulting the debater's appearance, or latching onto their grammar mistake instead of focusing on the content they’ve asserted. 

Both strawmanning and caricaturization have a common effect: the masses of media users are led directly to the conclusion that a side is wrong without a chance to think about why. We become the civilians of Brave New World, repeating virtues we learned through hypnopaedia, and that of 1984, blindly following “groupthink”. The danger of being exposed only to strong arguments on your side and weak arguments on your opposing side becomes clear: it discourages thought and stagnates productive discourse. Arguments in the comment section tend to be those screaming at each other from extreme ends of the spectrum. Instead of challenging each other, we are led first to disagree with their thoughts and tell them that they are wrong. 

It is heartbreaking that technology gives the opportunity for everyone to talk with one another, yet all we do is talk at one another. Why do we stay satisfied with social media’s bootlicking, when under the surface it is Big Tech exploiting our psychology to keep us too angry to think? We must be mindful of the nature of media algorithms. We must remind ourselves of the pick-and-choose nature of viral media. We must be open to losing an argument online for it means we learn something new. Let’s not flatter ourselves into stupidity — it is up to us, the users of technology, to regain use of our technology instead of letting it use us.