Social media is polarizing our country
The internet is a great outlet for information, and can truly educate people if they are looking to be educated, but recently it has caused an issue in our country. The knowledge I have of our political systems and the policies of leaders mostly comes from the internet, but I take the time to search for true and reliable information, from true and reliable sources, rather than just believing the first “fact” with which I am presented.
Influencers that have platforms based on political beliefs can be educational, and you can learn a lot from the information they provide. With the election growing as a popular topic, many even base their platforms on what they know about politics. However, whatever you hear on the internet needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Opinions and biases are littered everywhere, and the information one gets, specifically from social media, tends to influence personal beliefs. People like one post that is even remotely right or left leaning, then soon enough their whole feed will become a political campaign. Posts feature either direct and loud bias and support, or information that seems just true enough to think is unbiased, but is actually meant to skew you one way or the other.
I could count on one hand the number of people, my age, who are truly politically educated. This is because most people tend to take the information they get from social media and run with it, despite having no further research. These circumstances are furthering the political-party based polarization that our country is facing today. At this point though, full blame cannot be put on the media for this issue, as it is also largely due to negligence on the people’s part. I understand that it is easier to just keep scrolling rather than try and differentiate from fact and fiction, but if people took three minutes to really research, their opinion on things might be different.
If we want our country to be filled with diverse and developed opinions, we need to nurture them. Not copy those of our favorite celebrities and influencers, and definitely not blindly follow information. This leads to the intensely left and right parties we have consistently seen growing in the past few years.
