It’s almost as if social media has only intensified tribalism by giving us two dimensional views of the people we interact with. Our in-group has a diverse set of reasonable ideas, whereas the outgroup is a brainwashed monolith of everything we hate.
I know I’ve even taken more extreme stances outwardly than I actually believed because I didn’t want to be outcast by my friend group.
Oddly enough when I became more comfortable to speak my mind in a non-threatening manor to those who trust me, I did get my close circle to show that they weren’t as extreme as they presented themselves either.
It’s almost as if social media has only intensified tribalism by giving us two dimensional views of the people we interact with. Our in-group has a diverse set of reasonable ideas, whereas the outgroup is a brainwashed monolith of everything we hate.
The internet (even pre-social media) is an exercise in group polarization, recursively and repeatedly.
100%
I know I’ve even taken more extreme stances outwardly than I actually believed because I didn’t want to be outcast by my friend group.
Oddly enough when I became more comfortable to speak my mind in a non-threatening manor to those who trust me, I did get my close circle to show that they weren’t as extreme as they presented themselves either.