Think about the last time something political came up on your social media feed. Was it unbiased, curated toward your opinions, or biased toward a certain political party or person? It’s likely that it was the latter two. When people spend too much time on social media, the algorithm creates echo chambers that only feed you content designed to reinforce your opinions. This makes it difficult for people to empathize with different perspectives and experiences because they aren’t being exposed to different points of view, contributing to much of the divisiveness in our society. For politicians, echo chambers are a surefire way to get a group of supporters to rally around them. For example, if a Democrat is sucked into an echo chamber of only liberal views, their brain may be trained to believe the other side is wrong, creating an “us vs. them” situation and making support for that Democratic politician stronger.
Not only do echo chambers contribute to a more divided culture, but they also can affect election results due to misinformation. In the 2024 Election, false narratives and fabricated stories spread unchallenged throughout these isolated communities on both sides of the political spectrum because there was no one from the other side to speak up against the misinformation. People were being fed biased information that may not have shown all the facts, preventing them from understanding the other side’s point of view or seeking out information from unbiased sources.
While there are many negative effects that social media has on politics, it has been helpful for younger politicians, allowing them to build a platform even with little to no political background or connections. It allows them to connect with a wider audience instantly and hold their opponents accountable in real time. Take the recently elected mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani for example. Before the election, he was relatively unheard of and built a grassroots campaign with little money, connections, or experience. He used social media to take a clear stance on the issues and connect with his audience of voters in NYC.
His budding relationship with President Trump was cultivated through their similar social media and marketing strategies, allowing more compromise across the aisle. Although social media helped someone who wouldn’t have otherwise had the publicity make it onto the political scene and cultivated a relationship between two politicians who wouldn’t have otherwise agreed, Mamdani mostly targeted progressive voters throughout his campaign and didn’t reach across ideological lines to capture the interest of Republicans as well, which could have contributed to echo chambers.
We see the effects across all generations, but Gen Z is one of the most affected when it comes to political polarization. They are growing up in a culture where it’s become normal to attack the character of someone with different view points, and working across the aisle is a rarity. However, we can see Gen Z pushing back and arguing that this kind of divisiveness is not conducive to a democracy that should prioritize the people. Movements like BridgeUSA and Youth Power Project create spaces for open dialogue so people can express their opinions and learn about others’ points of view. Young people are recognizing that we need to create a society that prioritizes empathy toward different perspectives and experiences because the competitiveness and “us vs. them” culture of politics that social media is contributing to is leading to a loss of connection and empathy in our society.