Have you noticed that with some people, especially those with differing views from yours, it’s getting harder and harder to talk like mature adults and to get along? Have you noticed, more broadly, that people in general nowadays seem to have a harder time engaging in a constructive debate, especially on a controversial topic?
If you have, first of all, you’re not alone. Many people, myself included, are of the same impression. And second of all, various surveys validate this impression by pointing out that we as people are getting more ideologically polarized (which makes it harder to get along). For example, a 2014 survey from the Pew Research Center shows that Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. are pulling farther and farther apart, and there is less and less common ground between them in terms of ideology. And I suspect things have only gotten worse since 2014.
But it’s not just regarding politics and it’s not in the U.S. only: in terms of religious views, social views, views on life, there appears to be a growing rift all over the world between people with divergent opinions. And this rift makes it more difficult for them to find common ground, have a polite debate, and simply get along.
So, if increased ideological polarization is making it harder for us to get along, what makes ideological polarization increase? This is where I believe the concept of echo chambers has a lot of explanatory power.
The Rise of Echo Chambers
We all have the inclination to seek and accept information that confirms what we want to believe, and ignore or reject disconfirming information. Psychologists refer to this as confirmation bias. You may sometimes find yourself wanting to research topic X and searching on Google “arguments for X”, but completely skipping the search for “arguments against X”. This is biased research; and we all do it, although some more than others. It’s in our nature.
However, we now live in a world that makes it very easy to form and test our beliefs in this biased, confirmatory manner, which makes it easier to acquire erroneous beliefs and become confident in them nonetheless. The way the modern world does this is by permitting and subtly pushing us to live our lives in informational echo chambers.
The echo chamber is a metaphor for a closed information system, in which all members have very similar views and knowledge, and little outside information from potentially diverging sources gets through. In such an environment, whenever you express an opinion, no matter how ridiculous it is, all you get is the same opinion in agreement from the others around you. It’s like hearing your own echo, and confusing it with reality. And living in an echo chamber, when you occasionally do meet and talk to a person from a different echo chamber, it’s very difficult to converse constructively and get along.
Micro and Macro Echo Chambers
The echo chamber phenomenon manifests itself at various levels, in various ways.
First of all, we have echo chambers at the macro-level and the micro-level. At the macro level, echo chambers are the result of demographic shifts in population that take place over years and even decades, which bring people with similar views closer together, in the same neighborhoods, town, cities, counties, states and countries.
Author Bill Bishop wrote a brilliant portrayal of this phenomenon (as it occurs in the U.S.) in his book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded American is Tearing Us Apart. This “big sort” is sometimes the direct effect of people deliberately choosing to live in places where they can find as many like-minded people as possible, and other times an indirect effect of other lifestyle decisions.
For example, smarter people tend to seek a university education, so they cluster together in cities with lots of universities. However, such people also tend to have liberal political views and little belief in religion. Thus, the clustering together of smart individuals is also a clustering together of college educated, liberal and minimally religious individuals.
At the micro level, echo chambers occur because no matter where they live, people tend to befriend and spent time with other people with similar beliefs, and avoid people with dissimilar beliefs. A quick mental survey of the people in your own social circle, especially the ones you interact with the most, will likely confirm this in your own case. And it did for nearly all the people I’ve asked to do this mental exercise.
These behaviors, both at the macro level and the micro level, are problematic. As Bishop puts it in his above-mentioned book:
As people seek out the social settings they prefer—as they choose the group that makes them feel the most comfortable—the nation grows more politically segregated—and the benefit that ought to come with having a variety of opinions is lost to the righteousness that is the special entitlement of homogeneous groups.
Online Echo Chambers
Furthermore, the Internet exacerbates this echo chamber effect.
Fifty years ago, it was hard for a conspiracy theorist living in a small town to find like-minded individuals, and instead he would have received plenty of ridicule for his conspiratorial beliefs. Now, that conspiracy theorist can go online and easily find a private forum dedicated to people with the same conspiratorial beliefs as him, where he receives approval and acclamation for expressing his barmy ideas, which only reinforces them.
Besides making it easy to find like-minded people (which has good effects too, not just bad ones), the Internet also tends to function in a manner that primarily delivers us information we already agree with. For example, Google’s search algorithms will deliver you more of the kind of search results you click on (and usually we click on results that confirm our beliefs). And Facebook will show in your feed more posts of the kind you liked in the past (which were probably posts you agreed with).
This way the Internet works creates what Internet activist Eli Pariser calls, in a book with the same name, a filter bubble: an online bubble that keeps at bay information that disagrees with us, and filters in information that reinforces our current beliefs.
All of this paints a grisly picture of the segregated world we live in, both online and offline, but it also makes it easier to see why we’re so polarized, and thus why it’s so hard for us to get along with people who don’t share our views.
This being the situation, what can we do about it?
Getting Out of Our Bubbles
What we can and should do about this situation is, to put it simply, use effective ways to get out of our echo chambers and expose ourselves more to a larger variety of ideas, arguments and information.
One way to do this is by deliberately seeking and interacting more with people who have different opinions and ideas than ours. I have some relatives who live in a very different ideological world than mine. I used to only visit them rarely, but now I intentionally visit them more often: partly for the social connection it affords, and partly for the opportunity to discuss issues we disagree on, exchange ideas and debate them. It’s proven to be a very useful practice.
Another way is by informing yourself thoroughly on both sides of an issue before forming an opinion on it. There are heaps of information out there, and with some careful research you can unveil the strongest arguments for and against any idea.
And let us not forget the value of not unfriending or unfollowing online “friends” because you disagree with them. Instead, pay attention to their ideas, listen to their arguments, and inquire to learn more. Sometimes it may change your mind, other times you’ll just come out of this better informed on the issue in discussion. Either way, it’s a win.
Franklin D. Roosevelt once said that “democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” By getting out of our bubbles and exposing ourselves to an array of ideas and arguments for and against relevant issues, we effectively enhance the quality of our education. Thus, we make ourselves better people, better decision-makers, better neighbors, better leaders, and better citizens of a democracy.
Fantastic!!