I've had a similar experience. The bigger my social circle gets and the more people I follow, the easier it is to end up surrounded by a single perspective, especially on work-related topics. At first, I thought I was broadening my view, but it turned out I was just reinforcing my existing preferences.
Do you make a point of keeping people with different opinions in your network, or do you find it more comfortable to stay in circles where everyone thinks alike?
Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
121–130 of 245 posts
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#122In-group dynamics are further ingrained as the group gets bigger. If you have 4 friends in a group, their opinions aren't as strong. If you have 40 friends in a group, not only are their opinions stronger, they'll fight vigorously to defend the group's commonly accepted beliefs. So a growing social circle does reinforce the group dynamic. (this is well established by lots of studies) But increased polarization around…
Before the Internet and social media, groups had a practical size cap because they had to meet up in person. Polarization was naturally limited. I don't think the social media companies' algorithms are entirely to blame. But more broadly it's centralized moderation of public online spaces. Moderation of public behavior of physical spaces was only necessary because it wasn't possible to selectively filter people's inf…
We aren't doing it because most people want to suppress (some kind of) speech, meaning they don't want others to hear it either.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#123> "Despite minor differences between individual surveys, the data consistently show that the average number of close friendships rose from 2.2 in 2000 to 4.1 in 2024," says Hofer. If true, this is an astonishing social transformation, because it goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse . Or have people redefined what they consider to be "close friends"? Or are people actually genuin…
The DOI links aren't working so I can't read the study but I think there's a simple explanation, that also belies the headline. It may be that the typical number of close friends is now 0. But as people no longer even have any concept of close friendships, they're considering 'lesser' relationships as close friendships, because it's all they know.
This is made even more likely if they didn't define the term and allowed 'online friends' to be counted as 'close friends.' And I strongly suspect this may be the case since the graph shows a major inflection point in the increase of friends being 2007, the exact year when Facebook started becoming massive.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#124[dead]
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#1254 western countries with aging populations, what they really found is that people are getting older, have more free time for friends, who are now interest oriented rather than work or school related.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
It could also be something structural about how the "friendship graph" looks. The mean number of friendships isn't the median or typically experienced number of friendships, and if friendship relationship distributions follow some kind of power law, a change in the power-law exponent could make those diverge.
I am wondering the same thing. It's interesting that they didn't report at all on the median and only the average. Also find the timing interesting, as I can't help but suspect that both the justification and incentive for self-reporting a higher number of friends materially changed for some people in the early days of social media. They didn't seem to acknowledge this at all. The model they built that draws a causal…
I think you left out the biggest one (though I suppose #3 indirectly hits on this). Social media, and increasingly even online media in general, tends to heavily misrepresent 'the other side.' In the past relationships were formed primarily in person so you actually got see what 'the other side' was like. Now a days people instead depend on completely inaccurate stereotypes that are far more like cartoon caricatures than real people. See: the perception gap. [1]
So people simply don't understand 'the other side', but ironically think they do - which is a rather toxic combination. For instance the more news somebody follows, the less accurate their assessments of 'the other side.'
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#127> "Despite minor differences between individual surveys, the data consistently show that the average number of close friendships rose from 2.2 in 2000 to 4.1 in 2024," says Hofer. If true, this is an astonishing social transformation, because it goes against everything we here about the loneliness epidemic getting worse . Or have people redefined what they consider to be "close friends"? Or are people actually genuin…
The DOI links aren't working so I can't read the study but I think there's a simple explanation, that also belies the headline. It may be that the typical number of close friends is now 0. But as people no longer even have any concept of close friendships, they're considering 'lesser' relationships as close friendships, because it's all they know. This is made even more likely if they didn't define the term and allow…
My whole life is on the internet
We've become a family
We have never met
This is life inside the machine
Give me another hit of dopamine
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#128Yes. The same Internet that was going to connect the gay teenager in gay-hostile territory like rural Alabama or Iran and save them from suicide, it unfortunately turns out can also connect actual neo-Nazis and KKK members across the globe.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#129So is there an actual paper?
As is it's hard to evaluate if there is anything substantial to get out of these claims.
First time for me to meet with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity_Science_Hub
Is that cause or correlation?
Like, if people are more polarized, there are more likely to have wider ground to sympathize. Less throttle in opinion divergences, so they can deal with more social exchanges as the only interactions are endless smooth easy agreements within their social bubbles.
Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> usually close friends are limited to people that share the same values and ideas as you That stirkes me as myopic. My closest friends--the ones I trust with all my secrets, with whom have have practically no secrets, the ones I'd hide if it came to that or risk my life to save--are all over the place values and ideas-wise. It's what makes their company fun. It's also what makes their advice useful, because they'll…
If you are far right, I have to keep secrets from you. For safety. And no, someone actively wanting to limit my freedom and safety because their ideology is that women must be limited cant be trusted. They cant be trusted in calling me on my shit, because what they perceive as shit is my self interest and my core values.
There's a vast difference between "friends who challenge your views in constructive ways" and "people who make you feel unsafe"
I feel like GP was probably not referring to the latter.