Why is the internet so toxic and how to detox it

Polarization… 2022 is filled with it. The verbal war people engage in when the economy is discussed depends on the demeanour of how the leader speaks, “He should be more nice,” or “He should be more tough,”. This is an issue that happens around the world and is hotly talked about in the US.

It seems very difficult to see people unite in terms of politics.

People are very tribal in their opinions….

They would not even get together and have a mutual understanding that there should be solutions to the problems the average American faces at the moment (based on mostly economic issues such as inflation and other social issues such as racism).

To understand why this happens let’s break it down to a couple of aspects, from the mind (psychological) to the social aspects (sociological) in brief.

Psychologically, there is a state of discomfort which is called Cognitive Dissonance, it is that uneasiness when what you do or hear conflicts with your values or beliefs, hence that feeling of discomfort when you hear something you disagree with.

It really comes down to heuristics at the end of the day, our minds love making shortcuts, to cut the mental energy used up. So thinking through a problem in a critical manner is more difficult and hence if we have a certain bias towards an opinion, we would skip through all the “uncomfortable but important critical thinking” just like Daniel Kahneman highlighted in his very famous Thinking, Fast & Slow book.

This is a very famous theory, but to explain, we have two systems. System 1 and System 2. System 1 is the fast, you-want-it-you-got-it one. “2 + 2 = 4 - 1 that’s 3, quick math” (yes, an old musical reference pulled up from the past), where as System 2 is the more slow and deliberate process, try to do 24 x 32 under 5 seconds and unless you are a literal computer or some math whiz that has practiced this problem several times, it’s highly unlikely you could do this quickly. 4

Try to do 24 x 32 under 5 seconds and unless you are a literal computer or some math whiz that has practiced this problem several times, it’s highly unlikely you could do this quickly.

There is also a term called "Cognitive ease" which means the ease of understanding and associating with certain information.

You can apply this to our political beliefs as well, that’s why certain beliefs feel true, familiar and known and when someone else challenges you on that belief, it triggers a sense of discomfort, or let’s just say cognitive strain since you are either trying to workout how you can be wrong or most likely you are trying to find ways to defend what you say since these beliefs are pretty ingrained in your psychology.

A study was done, where participants were given sentences and were to determine if the sentences were grammatically wrong. One of the main conclusions was that if a participant disagreed with a statement, it was much easier to find more mistakes in grammar in the sentence. So in other words, if you disagree with a statement, you would not only try to disagree with what’s stated, you would also find other errors with the sentence. 1 2

if you disagree with a statement, you would not only try to disagree with what’s stated, you would also find other errors with the sentence.

Sociologically, there are many words thrown around, group think, peer pressure, herd mentality and so forth.

But then, why do these actually happen?

A couple of theories to explain this phenomenon:

The Social Comparison theory

Pretty self explanatory but it basically is comparing yourself to others and adjusting your behavior accordingly. So this could happen to your beliefs (especially in your youtube and twitter echo Chambers)

Herd Mentality

When a common opinion is prioritized and any individual reservations or skepticism is downplayed, completely disregarded or not even brought up in the first place in the fear of being an outcast.

Take for example, the Asch conformity experiments. Watch this video and you would get an idea as to how conformity takes place.

If you watched the video, you could clearly see she was peer pressured into giving the answer that the group picked even though the answer is wrong!

Again this could be applied in the case of our political beliefs, any hint of dissent from the group brings not only discomfort within the group but also within you.

Most of these hate crimes in the US can relate to cases of polarization, where the hate stems from polarization. (source: npr.org)

How could this polarization on the internet be solved?

There are a couple of solutions mentioned by authors and sociologists.

Ezra Klein, who authored the Book Why We Are Polarized mentions the process of democratization. The need to not necessarily promote the voices of partisan individuals like party politicians but the people from different communities (say for e.g.:- a farmer from a rural area, the local teacher union member, the businessman and so forth) and he also mentions depolarization starts from the individual. He goes into the need to emphasize on local politics, the need to address local issues and not to jump to the big picture of a country at all times.

Damon Centolla, Author of Change: How to Make Big Things Happen also mentions democratization just like Ezra Klein does. But instead of partisan politicians, he talks about how influencers on social media with bias can have a big impact since they have a lot of following, hence, whatever opinions they voice it is amplified by the social media loudspeaker as a result they can influence more people's opinions, so he proposes a democratic system where the views come from different people regardless of their “influence” but rather represent certain demographics and communities, much like what Middle Ground by Jubilee attempts to do.

influencers on social media with bias can have a big impact since they have a lot of following, hence, whatever opinions they voice it is amplified by the social media loudspeaker as a result they can influence more people's opinions

It is also a good practice for people to ask what other people's opinions on an issue is. It is up to the people to respectfully listen to what they have to say and respectfully disagree also.

This is how Daryl Davis was able to convert around 200 KKK (Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group) members to non members, and here is the kicker, he is the kind of guy that KKK mostly hate.

So he, who respectfully listened to the views of the KKK and discussed their ideas with compassion and respect while he obviously disagreed with their views, was a much more effective solution.

What can the content creator do to be part of the solution?

Have conversations with people who either fully or partly disagree with your views.

Why is this important?

Since there is a fan base around a certain influencer, if he or she goes and meets another influencer with slightly or fully differing views, that fan base gets exposed to those ideas and can see their influencer engage with the other person.

Now of course, there will be times when the fans will be militant and find ways to support their influencer but during the conversation, given the two or more people engaging find areas where they agree with, the fans watching or listening will find out they have more in common with the “other side” than they previously thought.

Like for example:- the two people will agree that there are fundamental issues with the economy but the disagreement is at how the economy should be fixed (one would want to focus on increasing the minimum wage, while the other side may want to focus on reducing taxes for businesses)

And as a result when the conversations finish, people will walk away feeling less militant and more open to the other side's opinions.

So if for example you are an influencer or content creator with certain views on any matter, go and have a conversation with a person with opposing views and start a dialogue with someone with the hopes of recognizing where one can find common ground, this way people will not have the tribalistic mentality towards such issues.

For references to the sources I used, click here .

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