According to a recent study conducted
Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2025 4:13 am
The figures, as well as the mood of the respondents, do not inspire optimism and do not foreshadow the easing of the situation in the upcoming presidential elections in the USA, in 2020.
The boiling of political passions is familiar to Ukrainians firsthand. Unfortunately, between the elections in the USA in 2016 and the elections in Ukraine in 2019, it is possible to draw a kind of parallel - the tension in social networks, increasing in geometric progression from the very beginning of the pre-election races, caused serious damage to the psycho-emotional state of people on both sides of the barricades. Moreover, such a trend is becoming an everyday thing almost everywhere.
Sociologists began to talk about a new era of extended communication and active involvement. It would seem that candidates and voters have an opportunity for a productive dialogue, but social media has become a divisive and polarizing link. They can create information bubbles and echo chambers that reinforce our existing biased beliefs. In such conditions, weak calls for objectivity and mutual respect look unconvincing to say the least.
" Remove from my friends if you support X ", " I don't want to see those who voted for X in my feed ", " Ha! After my next post, XXX was eliminated, and now everything became clear " - similar and many other publications occupied the lion's share of my News feed on Facebook for several months. Such outbursts seemed to me too expressive, infantile and unproductive. Regardless of preferred and occupied positions. They were unpleasant, but understandable to me. No one had the strength left to analyze rhetoric - bare emotions came to the fore. I was deleted several times. For not making a repost, for not openly expressing her position in the feed, and probably for something else.
It became unpleasant for me to go to Facebook. Moreover, since politics smoothly moved to Instagram, it was not possible to "hide" there either. One April morning, I unsubscribed from those whose posts seemed unconstructive and hysterical to me. It became calm in my new, artificially created space, but I still doubt the correctness of my decision.
Tolerance for the opposite view has become extremely low. Disagreements uruguay number data are easier to get rid of, unfriend and forget. And, unfortunately, this applies not only to politics. Religion, natural fur, sexism, art, the LGBT community - disputes and friction on these topics are enough to say goodbye to someone forever or temporarily (some users are characterized by so-called emotional swings and multiple additions/deletions associated with them) . Does this mean that we simply do not want to hear the interlocutor and conduct a dialogue?
Leaving his post, Barack Obama said very important and correct words: " If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking to one of them in real life ." Asking for concepts is work. Cognitive and emotional. This requires time, which most of us have very little. That is why we often hang both labels, award opponents with undeserved epithets, and block violators of our internal balance.
A close friend deserves at least a few comments, and maybe "sheets" from the explanations. A former classmate will do without them and, to be honest, you have long been bored reading him/her. But a random acquaintance from last year's conference or your neighbor's cousin will go to the ban unconditionally. Who is he to you? Nobody, that's right. But it doesn't work like that. Social media is a network of friends, buddies, colleagues and acquaintances - close and not so many, who enter your home and those whom you may not recognize at a chance meeting. Someone from the list of friends or subscriptions can play an important role in your life, and someone will remain a "faceless friend from FB". No one can predict with mathematical accuracy exactly how your online or offline relationships will develop. By blocking everyone and everything, you deprive yourself of the variety inherent in social networks and create a cozy microcosm at first glance. In reality, it is impossible to protect oneself from painful topics, unreasonable political opponents and pendulums of information war. They will fall on you in the form of a tsunami, as soon as you cross the threshold of your home. Such is life. There will always be Tories and Whigs, Democrats and Republicans, Greens and Oranges, opponents and adherents of proper nutrition, believers and atheists.
The boiling of political passions is familiar to Ukrainians firsthand. Unfortunately, between the elections in the USA in 2016 and the elections in Ukraine in 2019, it is possible to draw a kind of parallel - the tension in social networks, increasing in geometric progression from the very beginning of the pre-election races, caused serious damage to the psycho-emotional state of people on both sides of the barricades. Moreover, such a trend is becoming an everyday thing almost everywhere.
Sociologists began to talk about a new era of extended communication and active involvement. It would seem that candidates and voters have an opportunity for a productive dialogue, but social media has become a divisive and polarizing link. They can create information bubbles and echo chambers that reinforce our existing biased beliefs. In such conditions, weak calls for objectivity and mutual respect look unconvincing to say the least.
" Remove from my friends if you support X ", " I don't want to see those who voted for X in my feed ", " Ha! After my next post, XXX was eliminated, and now everything became clear " - similar and many other publications occupied the lion's share of my News feed on Facebook for several months. Such outbursts seemed to me too expressive, infantile and unproductive. Regardless of preferred and occupied positions. They were unpleasant, but understandable to me. No one had the strength left to analyze rhetoric - bare emotions came to the fore. I was deleted several times. For not making a repost, for not openly expressing her position in the feed, and probably for something else.
It became unpleasant for me to go to Facebook. Moreover, since politics smoothly moved to Instagram, it was not possible to "hide" there either. One April morning, I unsubscribed from those whose posts seemed unconstructive and hysterical to me. It became calm in my new, artificially created space, but I still doubt the correctness of my decision.
Tolerance for the opposite view has become extremely low. Disagreements uruguay number data are easier to get rid of, unfriend and forget. And, unfortunately, this applies not only to politics. Religion, natural fur, sexism, art, the LGBT community - disputes and friction on these topics are enough to say goodbye to someone forever or temporarily (some users are characterized by so-called emotional swings and multiple additions/deletions associated with them) . Does this mean that we simply do not want to hear the interlocutor and conduct a dialogue?
Leaving his post, Barack Obama said very important and correct words: " If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the Internet, try talking to one of them in real life ." Asking for concepts is work. Cognitive and emotional. This requires time, which most of us have very little. That is why we often hang both labels, award opponents with undeserved epithets, and block violators of our internal balance.
A close friend deserves at least a few comments, and maybe "sheets" from the explanations. A former classmate will do without them and, to be honest, you have long been bored reading him/her. But a random acquaintance from last year's conference or your neighbor's cousin will go to the ban unconditionally. Who is he to you? Nobody, that's right. But it doesn't work like that. Social media is a network of friends, buddies, colleagues and acquaintances - close and not so many, who enter your home and those whom you may not recognize at a chance meeting. Someone from the list of friends or subscriptions can play an important role in your life, and someone will remain a "faceless friend from FB". No one can predict with mathematical accuracy exactly how your online or offline relationships will develop. By blocking everyone and everything, you deprive yourself of the variety inherent in social networks and create a cozy microcosm at first glance. In reality, it is impossible to protect oneself from painful topics, unreasonable political opponents and pendulums of information war. They will fall on you in the form of a tsunami, as soon as you cross the threshold of your home. Such is life. There will always be Tories and Whigs, Democrats and Republicans, Greens and Oranges, opponents and adherents of proper nutrition, believers and atheists.