Algorithms, echo chambers and emotions
In the article 'Teaching Humility in an Age of Arrogance', philosophy professor Michael Patrick Lynch writes about how humility is increasingly giving way to arrogance in public discourse (4). The polarisation and escalation of the discourse we often see in social media is partly driven by the way that online media platforms work. The algorithms driving the internet are designed not only to give us access to vast amounts of information, but also to ensure that we receive more of precisely the kind of information that we want – and even the information that we did not know we wanted. With ever better precision and efficiency, we are served up advertisements, news items, suggestions for sites to follow, and political views that primarily reflect our own. The result is that we help to define our own echo chambers, in which we are fed more and more of what we already believe, and are encouraged to regard everyone who doesn't agree with us as misinformed and stupid. This scenario represents a breeding ground for arrogance and condescension, and solid doses of both self-reflection and self-confidence may be required to prevent us from being 'guided into' our own opinions and the voicing of them.
The format of online debates and social media means that input is made up of brief, pointed statements with emotive content. A study by Brady et al. (2017) showed that posts with moral-emotional words were shared on social media far more than other posts. In their study, each moral or emotional word in a post on Twitter increased the probability of the tweet being shared by 20 % (5).
In the vast stream of online information, posts that require more than a few seconds of users' attention are unlikely to capture their interest – which leaves little room for reflection and nuance. In other words, if you want to be seen and get a response, you need to shout loudly, keep it short and preferably pull at the heart strings.
The more faceless and impersonal our interaction is, the easier it is to act without compassion or regard for the other party
A post that directly attacks the health authorities' priorities or lambasts someone for their opinion on who should get priority for COVID-19 vaccines, probably gets shared far more widely and attracts a greater number of comments than a more balanced post. Why spend time and energy on ethical considerations and well-considered input when it will disappear and be quickly forgotten in the stream of emotive, sharply worded and populist posts?