Polarization
With the more and more common use of social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, social media platforms have began to place users in algorithms to match its users with specific content based on their likes and content views. What this does is place users in groups of like minded people (homophily) in order to appease the users desired content. The issue with this is that the algorithms do not care whether a belief or idea about any issue is wrong or twisted. Using the algorithms these social media platforms will continue to place you in groups of like minded and similar people in order to fuel your desired content. Doing this can split people even IRL (in real life) friends because they do not believe or like the same things they do.
Isolation
Isolation is social media looks like this: A man believes that the president is the worst and everything he does is wrong. Social media will pick up on those algorithms of things he likes and dislikes and will isolate him with other ads and content that support his belief and leaving out any conflicting views. This is troubling as no one is 100% right about things we cannot experience or see for ourselves. Having conflicting views is necessary for critical thinking. Critical thinking allows us to think about a subject and have views from surrounding beliefs in order for us to come to a right and correct decision.
Mitigating Isolation and Polariozation
The best thing we could do to mitigate these problems is get the idea out of our heads that we are always right. Half of the time we are probably wrong. If we take the time to broaden our scope of beliefs and ideologies maybe we will receive content that is less isolating and polarized
Andrew's Blog 