Social Division and Social Media
Social Division and Social Media
When I am talking to someone, I often have a difference of opinion with them.
It is a good thing that we all have different perspectives, and that is why it is interesting to be friends with them.
Some people can deny their own decisions and others cannot, and they are surprised when I suddenly change my opinion when it comes to product decision making. However, if I think it is the right thing to do after thinking about it, I think it is right to change the decisions I made.
People have different opinions because they are diverse, which seems like a good thing, but on the other hand, the radicalization of idea has been more prevalent in our modern day society.
Why? In today's world, where there are so many media with more choice (we have 1,761 channels on TV, and more digital media to read which have different perspectives), so it seems that the social division should be gradual, but in reality, it's not due to confirmation bias.
, people are biased to news, tailored to their political beliefs.
Fake news (i.e., misinformation) on social media has sharply increased over the past years. We conducted an experiment collecting behavioral and EEG data from 83 social media users to understand whether they could detect fake news on social media, and the factors affecting cognition and judgment. We found that confirmation bias dominates, with most users unable to distinguish real news from fake. Users exhibit greater cognitive activity when news headlines align with their political opinions, and they are more likely to believe them. Headlines that challenge their opinions receive little cognitive activity (i.e., they are ignored) and users are less likely to believe them. The presence of a fake news flag on a headline aligned with users’ opinions triggered cognitive activity that could be associated with increased semantic memory retrieval, false memory construction, or increased attention. However, this flag had no effect on judgments about truth; flagging headlines as false did not influence users’ beliefs. Only 17% of our participants could detect fake news better than chance, with only one detecting fake news more than 60% of the time. In other words, most social media users would make better truth judgments by flipping a coin.
The Reality of Social Division
In 2012, the Pew Research Center updated its 25-year study of the nation's political values and found that the partisan divide in opinions, of over than 40 political values had nearly doubled in the previous quarter century. That is, whether more people have taken a linearly liberal or conservative stance on a range of issues, including homosexuality, immigration, foreign policy, the environment, economic policy, and the role of government.
The chart below shows the extent to which members of both parties have become ideologically consistent and, as a result, have drifted away from one another: on a measure of ideological consistency that synthesizes the responses to the 10 questions, the median Republican is more conservative than nearly all Democrats (94%) and the median Democrat is more liberal than 92% of Republican legislators.!
In income inequality, the disparity in income by race and gender is also pronounced, with the unemployment rate among African Americans at about 10% for several years, four times that of whites, and lesbians earning 11% less than heterosexual women and gay men earning 32% less than heterosexual men ( 2017).
Information and income inequality could be separated, but they are also connected.
, globalization and technological innovation have widened the gap between rural and urban areas and polarized the labor market. The widening inequality and the ease with which information spreads have chained anger together.
The BLM of African Americans has been in existence since 2013 in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer, and with social media comes bias investigations by police, differences in social treatment between white and black (e.g., arrested or not), and income inequality.
Those social divisions is get bigger and bigger.
Why is the Social Division problematic?
Inequality and discrimination
Social division can lead to unequal treatment and opportunities for certain groups, and can result in discrimination and prejudice against individuals based on their group membership.
Lack of social cohesion
Social division can create barriers between different groups and prevent them from coming together and working towards common goals. This can weaken social bonds and make it difficult to build a strong and cohesive society.
Economic and social disadvantages
Social division can result in unequal access to resources and opportunities, which can lead to economic and social disadvantages for certain groups.
Conflict and violence
Social division can lead to tensions and misunderstandings between different groups, and in extreme cases, can lead to violence and social unrest.
Social Media Promoting Social Divisions
Social media brought together people in the same situation as themselves, allowing them to discover certain common enemies and creating a sense of solidarity.
The more homogeneous information they get exposed to, the more fixed their input becomes. As a result, the crystallization of the "we are right and those who don't fit the bill are wrong" thinking begins.
Cambridge Analytica
Why are these misunderstandings and differences in values and political ideologies in society becoming more intense?
Cambridge Analytica was reportedly hired as a consultancy firm by the Leave camp. EU and the UK Independence Party during 2016 as an effort to convince people to support Brexit. These rumors became a major social issue when internal emails between Cambridge Analytica and the British Parliament were leaked.
The most important source of data is Facebook, and through third-party apps, Cambridge Analytica has access to up to 87 million Facebook profiles, including status updates, likes, and even private messages. and even private messages from up to 87 million Facebook profiles, and then use this data to manipulate the public's psychology through advertising.
This was also done in the U.S. presidential election.
Cambridge Analytica's psychological manipulation of the public in the U.S. was conducted through the following groupings and psychological manipulation operations
A. Trump ardent supporters B. Supporters who might support Trump C. Trump supporters who are not sure if they will actually vote D. Ardent supporters of Clinton E. Voters who might support Clinton
This grouping is believed to have moved the ambiguous supporters and those who might vote. (* However, some have pointed out that in reality, this kind of psychological manipulation is hype.)
And the same thing is happening on Tiktok, according to The New York Times
Ahead of this fall's midterm elections, TikTok, like Facebook and Twitter, is becoming a major source of problematic, unfounded, and misleading information in many ways, according to researchers who track online falsehoods. powerful but poorly understood recommendation algorithms, the same qualities that sparked the viral dance craze, make it difficult to contain inaccurate claims.
Misconceptions in Feminism
Categorization and labeling are major contributors here. The influence of categorization and labeling has been prominent in the feminist movement.
Feminism is fundamentally a movement to eliminate unfair treatment and disadvantage due to gender differences, but a major misconception in feminism has made the issue more distorted, and that prevented the spread of concept of equality.
The most difficult part is those who get the fake concept of feminism are into conspiracy theory and their thought is crystalized.
The fundamental point of the movement should have been "about equality, where everyone is allowed to express themselves as they are, as human" but it has been widely perceived as "something that demeans men and exploits men by women. Those also tend to think the world in a
Men and women are human beings, and they are free to choose their own way of life. If this is the case, then women should be allowed to work hard, raise children as a mother, or live while traveling.
Those misconceptions spread on Youtube, Tiktok, Twitter, or on other social media.
Homogeneous Groups
Sociologists have found that almost all decisions that affect the entire group are made within a social context. Decisions are made based on the "wisdom of the crowd" rather than on individual judgment.
When engagement is high and intense in a group, the same ideas may come up again and again. However, because ideas vary slightly from person to person, they may not be perceived as mere repetition of ideas. As a result, the assumption that "everyone is doing the same thing" and that "I should do the same thing" becomes stronger (echo chamber).
The Echo Chamber Problem in Facebook and Twitter
Italian researchers investigated the echo chamber effect in four social networks, Gab, Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.
"This is a comparative analysis of over 100 million pieces of content from Gab, Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter on several controversial topics (e.g., gun control, vaccinations, abortion). We quantify echo chambers on social media by two main factors.
- sameness in exchange networks and 2) bias in spreading information to like-minded peers.
We found that on Facebook and Twitter, a set of users belonging to like-minded clusters dominate online interactions."
Not all social media cause echo chambers, but social networking sites with algorithms that display popular content based on user preferences, such as Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, SnapChat, and Twitter, are the most likely to cause echo chamber effect is likely to occur.
Social Division and Tiktok
As long as there are corporations that profit from fueling division, there is no stopping this trend.
TikTok is rife with health-related, unscientific stories about Covid-19 vaccines and masks, while other posts about diet, pediatric diseases, and even racism are rampant.
In fact, a new study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that of the 1,030 videos researchers analyzed during a three-month period in 2020, 312, or nearly one-third, amplified white supremacy. The clips included support for genocide conspiracy theories claiming that white existence is threatened, as well as music from white power bands.
In response to these situations, Filippo Menczer, professor of informatics and computer science at Indiana University and director of the Observatory on Social Media, proposed research collaboration to TikTok, which was rejected.
Hope this will not happen on Twitter.
Human behavior alters depending on the environment.
A 2015 study found that rehabilitating abandoned and vacant buildings in Philadelphia significantly reduced overall crime, gross assaults, gun attacks, and nuisance crime. Furthermore, they found no evidence that crime had moved to other areas. Although the "broken windows theory" is generally considered to have little practical usefulness, it is acknowledged for its correlation with burglary.
The significant change in human behavior that the strength of the environment and social norms can provide will vary with behavior in each social media.
In fact, studies have shown that people are more likely to communicate in a more supportive manner in social media such as Reddit, which is both anonymous and has codified communication norms.
"During the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of social networking sites (SNS) increased rapidly in many countries, including the United States. In the week following the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, this study investigated how users sought and provided social support on three SNSs, mainly in the United States and Europe: Reddit (N=100), YouTube (N=100), and Facebook (N=100), using English We investigated this through a content analysis of conversations. In addition to analyzing social support, this study examined aggressive communication, which often has undesirable mental health consequences, on Reddit, YouTube, and Facebook during this time period.SIDE (Social Identity Model of Individuation Effects) states that anonymous environments that codify civil communication norms are more likely to result in prosocial behavior. The results showed that there was a significant difference in the prevalence of supportive and aggressive communication across Reddit, YouTube, and Facebook; Reddit users offered social support more frequently than YouTube and Facebook users, and higher. Reddit users were also significantly less likely to engage in aggressive communication than YouTube and Facebook users. These results support the predictions made by the SIDE model because Reddit is more anonymous than YouTube and Facebook and codifies supportive and civil communication norms in a rule system called "Reddiquette. "
I myself would be a person who would ignore a traffic light without a mask in plenty of time if I went to New York, and I would only ignore it to a lesser extent if I went to Tokyo. Where nine out of ten people walking in New York will ignore a traffic light, in Tokyo, there may or may not be one out of ten.
, the probability of an economy class passenger causing a commotion on an airliner equipped with first class was 3.84 times greater than on an airliner without first class, and the probability that a passenger who left the first class compartment and entered the economy class compartment when boarding an airplane The probability of causing a disturbance was reportedly 2.18 times greater than if they had entered directly into the economy class compartment.
This suggests that it is possible to have a significant impact on human attitudes and thinking by changing social norms and mechanisms.
We believe that creating an environment where people can affirm themselves without pretending to be something they are not has the effect of making society less divided. The division of society is caused by a society where people cannot be themselves, and social media is largely responsible for creating this division.
This is the reason why we believe that Authenticity in social networking is a growing trend among teenagers, and many Authenticity-oriented products, including weCall have started to emerge over the past two years.