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Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

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Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

#191

Post by JumpCrisscross »

lynx97 wrote: post #175
jfengel wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just at the moment: a lot of people who consider themselves merely "right" voted for a candidate who is undeniably "far right". So for the moment I'm not drawing much distinction between "conservative values" and "outright Nazis". That was not always true and I hope it will not remain true. But speaking at this specific time in history, this fact represents a genuine threat to life and liberty.

From my POV, you are pissed that your people lost, and can't get over it. Remember that democracy is a pendulum. Swinging from side to side is a necessary ingredient of democracy. You can't always win, and, you shouldn't. But I guess you are unable to listen to this simple principle, because you and your people railed yourself up so much that you are unable to calm down. That is weird to me, as I believe that is a sk…

Did you ask the question to get a real answer?

The difference between right and far right is, in a nutshell, endorsement of insurrection and militarism.

The GOP was a right-wing party. MAGA is bona fide far right. There are plenty of conservatives (or pissed-off idiots) who voted for Trump but aren’t MAGA. There are also lots of folks who believe in MAGA to the core. The latter are far right, probably fascists.

> democracy is a pendulum. Swinging from side to side is a necessary ingredient of democracy

It’s a multidimensional pendulum. There is no natural partisan swing to group dynamics; it’s why parties fail and are remade or replaced, even in two-party systems.

Also, Democrats should embrace Trump’s precedents next cycle. But the results will uglier than before for those on the other side. (To port prior policy goals, you’d cancel student debts by literally shredding the documents, thereby undermining the government’s ability to collect even if it wants to. And you’d pursue environmental policy by dismantling coal power plants and mines. The courts may get mad later. But it wouldn’t be rebuilt.)

Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

#192

Post by teamonkey »

mgh2 wrote: post #147
flave wrote: post #144

> And this increase happened suddenly, between 2008 and 2010 Occam’s Razor tells me that it’s almost certainly linked to the near-total failure of the economic system (and the very slow recovery outside specific US cities).

It is obviously social media: more connections does not equally mean social interactions - people substituted costly and hard in-person for cheap and easy online interactions, with AI optimization fueling the polarization.

It would correlate well with the social media boom in the late 2000s. Digg, Reddit, Twitter, Google's purchase and aggressive expansion of Youtube, etc. 4Chan.

When did algorithmic recommendations (by which I mean injecting content into your feed to maintain attention, rather than an attempt to rank by quality) become commonplace? ISTR Youtube was being criticised for pushing conspiracy theories in the late 2000s, but I could be misremembering the timeline.

Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

#193

Post by eleveriven »

lukebechtel wrote: post #33

I favor the theory that polarization is due to decreasing attention spans, effectively preventing us from appropriately considering nuance. Related: https://open.substack.com/pub/josephheath/p/populism-fast-an...

The constant flood of short-form content definitely trains us to expect snap takes and instant clarity

Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

#194

Post by eleveriven »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #11

In-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…

The social network angle is probably just one piece of a much larger puzzle

Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

#197

Post by Eisenstein »

somenameforme wrote: post #123
crazygringo wrote: post #15

> "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…

I can't find this study even searching for the author's name and the title. FYI, the cited author Stefan Thurner has published 73 articles in peer reviewed journals in the past 3 years (all of the ones I glanced at appeared to involve statistical correlations), so they are very prolific.

Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

#198

Post by dominicrose »

procaryote wrote: post #155

Instinctively this seems like it could be a common cause Social Media getting big → larger perceived friend groups Social Media getting big → more polarisation rather than the larger friend groups → more polarisation causality hypothesised in the article

Social media is clearly a culprit.

People say things on social media they wouldn't say directly to your face. It's normal to be shy in front of real people and shyness is a social feature not a bug. Even those who don't shy away from taboo topics, are more likely to be convincing in real life than with text.

Less shyness = more differences of opinion expressed

More convincing = less division

Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

#199

Post by basisword »

bee_rider wrote: post #161
elric wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or have people redefined what they consider to be "close friends"? I suspect that you've hit the nail on the head. It would also be interesting to see numbers on churn. How long do these many close friendships last? Do they last longer than before? Or, more likely, less long?

I think longer is… possible, at least? The internet has allowed me to keep in touch with friends from elementary school. I’m, unfortunately, approaching 40 more quickly than I’d like, so these are around 30 year friendships. Although, I’ve also got some college friends that I’d consider close. So that’s more like 15 years. Also online mostly at this point.

This is an excellent point. I have 10 friends that I went through 15 years of school + University with. So obviously very close friends. We remain in touch via group chat a decade on but only actually see each other once or twice a year. I would still consider them among my closest friends - but the convenience of modern technology has definitely preserved those friendships to a large extent. I imagine if we had to actually phone each other we would feel much less close.

Re: Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

#200

Post by basisword »

Ratelman wrote: post #179
Ratelman wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boils down to the basics of proper science - how does one measure/quantify close friends?

Reflecting on my own experience - frequency of contact (if I see them once a year, can't really count them as close friends) How involved they are in my life - are they people I turn to when I'm facing a problem, do they turn to me when facing their own problems? Do we have frequent deep conversations - not just surface level discuss the weather, sports etc. but stuff that matter. Quantifying this - length of friends…

>> Reflecting on my own experience - frequency of contact (if I see them once a year, can't really count them as close friends)

I think this one is interesting. If you saw them daily for 20 years and then transitioned to once a year are they automatically not close friends? Even if they satisfied the other criteria (like you could turn to them when you are facing a serious problem, you have deep conversations on that annual meeting because you are comfortable with them, etc)?

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