How Social Media Divides Society

Exploring the role of media in an increasingly opinionated world.

Over quarantine, I’ve learned that social media has an immense impact on the opinions of individuals and on society as a whole.

Due to an increased use of social media, more and more teenagers have turned to platforms such as Instagram and TikTok as their most trusted news source. These platforms make spreading information and making it interesting much easier than any traditional new source. As a result, teenagers are becoming more and more opinionated on all sorts of political and moral topics.

At first glance, this may seem like a great thing. Perhaps the days of kids dreading to listen to the radio or read newspapers are over, and this more driven generation will be able to solve some of society’s issues that older generations have failed to do.

However, I think that, for many reasons, this influx of media-based information is only worsening the problems that may appear to solve.

Media can cloud our judgement.

The other day, I was talking to my grandmother about her opinion on the election and presidency. She said that she wasn’t too opinionated on who the next president would be, which may be true for some people. What was surprising was that she was fully convinced that the presidency was still undecided, and that Congress had power over deciding the outcome of the election. My mom and I were taken aback by this- it seemed like such an obvious fact that the President was chosen by the people’s votes and not by the government. However, she was convinced of quite the opposite, and even showed us articles that proved her point. Even after we tried telling her that these articles just weren’t factual, she still refused to listen to us and said that she would just wait to see what the actual outcome of the election was.

What I’m trying to get at here is that people tend to treat formal articles spread by social media and other people’s words more seriously than, in some cases, even their family. I’m sure the articles that my grandmother read all seemed reliable, and this clouded her judgement so much that she couldn’t even see that they were fundamentally incorrect.

This isn’t just the case for my grandmother, though; this pattern can be seen in all sorts of people. When articles show that they have a lot of public support, such as likes and shares, it makes us think that they are more reliable and should be taken as factual. After all, who would believe the opinion of one over what seems to be an agreement of 100,000 people?

Relying on social media prevents individuality.

It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon of supporting a specific idea without actually thinking about your own ideas and what you truly believe in. It is a part of human nature to find people with similar interests and stick with them, so it makes sense that adopting the opinions of everyone would be most beneficial to you and help you avoid conflict.

Similarly, it is much less time consuming to just blend in with a crowd than to actually take time to do research and formulate an argument on every event or topic that is being talked about at the time. There have even been instances where I asked a friend who posted something on their story for their thoughts on the matter, and they simply said that they posted it because everyone else did. People are becoming more and more willing to ‘fit in’ rather than educating themselves on the things that they truly care about.

Social media algorithms definitely don’t help this, either. In order to keep users hooked and pique their interest over time, apps like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and even Google prefer showing you things that you’ve expressed interest in. This means that, as a Democrat, I am not likely to get a video created by an avid Trump supporter on my for you page. What this does is makes social media users more and more comfortable with the little bubble that they live in, and shows them more people that share their beliefs.

Without ever taking the time to understand the opposition’s argument, it can be hard to listen to anything that the other side says. I remember being taken aback by the election results because, living in a community where all of my peers share pretty much the same ideas, it was weird for me to see that so many people supported the opposite of what I believed in. I also found myself questioning why they believed in what they did, since it seemed so obvious to me that my opinions should be treated as fact throughout the country, just like they were in my personal community of family and friends.

Relentlessly sharing ideas promotes inaction, not action.

Some might argue that the media’s way of sharing ideas helps more people be educated and knowledgeable about things that are happening in the world. However, all I think this does is set up societies that are less and less willing to actually act upon their beliefs. For example, let’s take the Instagram trend of posting a black screen that was immensely popular during the time of the BLM protests. Sure, the movement showed the unity of many and how people as a community came together to show their support towards the movement. But this is merely just a cover up and justification for not doing anything that would actually help the cause.

By posting a black screen or signing a petition, it makes people think that they’ve showed their contribution to the movement and then, nothing else happens. It makes it easier for people to be satisfied with the bare minimum.

If more people dedicated their time towards researching and learning about topics that they truly cared about rather than posting about topics ‘just because everyone else did’, I think that we as a generation would be able to make so much more change. After all, the more time and effort you put into something, the more sacrifices you are willing to make for it.

‘Cancel culture’ doesn’t help anyone.

Another prominent topic in my generation related to these ideas is the concept of ‘cancel culture’.

Cancel culture originally began as a way to call out celebrities and other important figures on their wrongdoings. However, it has now become exaggerated to the point where even lesser-known public figures can have their entire careers ended over a single sentence or even word they said five, ten years in the past.

All I think this has done is scare people from expressing their ideas. Instead of disagreeing and talking to others about conflicting ideas, people are now more willing to just conform with the norm in order to avoid getting backlash. I’ve had a few arguments with my close friends recently over one political idea or another, and even on such a small scale, I was scared to say what I actually believed in fear that my friends would alienate me for it. It upsets me to think that many people value one’s opinions more seriously than whether or not they consider them to be a good friend.

Our culture today is one that has made bashing other people on the basis of their opinions the right thing to do. Is it really better to ‘cancel’ someone for being homophobic, for example, rather than trying to take time to educate them and show them the your side of the argument? Since when was it okay to ruin one’s future purely based on their ideas? All of this is exacerbating the differences between two schools of thought and pressuring people into conforming with one or the other.

Social media can be brainwashing.

Although brainwashing doesn’t seem to be a very prevalent aspect in today’s society, social media slowly brainwashes people into believing in things that they might not have otherwise.

Brittanica defines brainwashing as “typically [involving] isolation from former associates and sources of information; an exacting regimen requiring absolute obedience and humility; strong social pressures and rewards for cooperation”.

This definition might seem crazy and inapplicable to our lives at first, but it actually pertains to a huge part of social media. Algorithms actively isolate people from opposing sources of information, and ‘cancel culture’, a strong social pressure, has made it much more rewarding to simply cooperate with those that are on your side.

As a whole, I don’t think that social media is purely detrimental. It’s facilitated many great things, such as keeping in contact with family and friends across the world and raising awareness for topics that more people should care about. However I feel that when people start using social media as a political tool, it encourages people to take sides and listen less and less to other people’s ideas.

I think society would be better off with individuals with diverse opinions rather than sticking to the left or the right or any other topic that tends to have strong polar and conflicting groups. In today’s world many people are becoming more and more accepting of each other’s individuality, which has made countless lives easier and freer. If social media were used to support diversity rather than bring down those whole are against you, perhaps society could be more productive as a whole and collaborating on solving issues would be easier.