Official newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin

The Daily Texan

Official newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin

The Daily Texan

Official newspaper of The University of Texas at Austin

The Daily Texan

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October 4, 2022
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Social media ‘bubbles’ harm meaningful discourse

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Courtesy of The Blaze

Eighteen months. We “argued” for 18 months. We watched our Facebook feeds tell us the information we wanted to hear for 18 months. We stayed trapped in our own little bubbles for 18 months. Too long we have been separated. It is time to bring back proper discourse. 

Social media is shaping the identities of liberals and conservatives. With 44 percent of U.S. adults getting their tailored selection of news from Facebook, we stop engaging in productive discourse and give rise to conservative inflammatory idols like Tomi Lahren and Milo Yiannopoulos.

Around two months ago, I joined a 120,000 member Tomi Lahren fan group on Facebook, and I learned that we, as humans, are lazy. Our brains find it easy to categorize things and generally order everything in a binary fashion. 


This leads to discourse turning into “you’re either with us or against us” and “you’re wrong, I’m right, end of story.” We are hostile to each other — unwilling to engage for fear of our reality being questioned because changing your mind is harder than accepting what you know.

In this group, there is no such thing as productive discourse, just memes and anger. No opinions changed, nothing learned and no one better off having access to this closed group. Both the liberals and the conservatives in the group are trapped in their own bubbles. 

The biggest problems we face are our group identities and the need to have others validate our reality. These people do not even have to interact; they just need to feel they are a part of something bigger than them. 

When a new piece of information comes to light, we are forced to potentially shift our paradigms. Because it takes a lot of effort for our brains to evaluate a new reality, we simply maintain the status quo. If you lived your entire life thinking all deserts have sand and someone tells you Antarctica is a desert, then you will struggle to comprehend this. 

Psychology professor Art Markman explains this in terms of in-groups and out-groups. Generally speaking, we assume our in-group is full of people who mean well, and are exciting to be around, and out-group people are not as good. 

“It is socially difficult, and cognitively difficult to leave the bubble.” Markman said. “When you’re in the bubble it is cognitively easiest to say the out-group is just wrong.” 

The longer we take to realize that we are entrenching ourselves in an “us versus them” mentality, the longer it will take to undo the cultural divide and reach a compromise. We stopped focusing on tangible policy and positive impacts a long time ago. 

The labeling and insults that are so prevalent in our political arena are not the causes of our issues but rather the symptom. We are unwilling to use our mental capacity enough to figure out how to compromise and progress. Take your anger and frustration and put it into something worth your energy. Learn to love compromise.

Kumar is an economics, humanities and human dimensions of organizations sophomore from Sugar Land. Follow him on Twitter @ImAbiKumar.

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Social media ‘bubbles’ harm meaningful discourse