The Internet is Worse Than Ever

The Internet is Worse Than Ever – Now What?

The Myth of the Filter Bubble

You’ve probably heard the common explanation for why the internet and social media have become so divisive and toxic in recent years – the idea of online “filter bubbles.” The theory goes that algorithms on social media and search engines curate content to only show you information that aligns with your existing beliefs and worldview, trapping you in an ideological echo chamber. As a result, your views become more extreme and you lose the ability to empathize with or understand perspectives different from your own.

However, recent research has challenged this prevailing narrative. Studies have found that the filter bubble effect is actually quite rare. Rather than being isolated in ideological silos, people online are constantly exposed to a wide range of opinions and information that don’t align with their own views.

In fact, the real filter bubble may exist more in our offline, real-world lives. Our physical communities and social circles tend to be much more homogeneous than our online networks. We’re more likely to surround ourselves with people who share our background, beliefs, and worldview in the “real world” than we are online.

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Your Brain is Stupid

So if the filter bubble isn’t the culprit, what is causing the growing polarization and toxicity we see online and in society? The answer may lie in the limitations and biases of the human brain itself.

Our brains didn’t evolve to understand the true nature of reality or engage with a diverse range of perspectives. Rather, they developed to help our ancestors navigate and maintain social structures and cooperation within their tribes. Being part of a cohesive, aligned group was crucial for survival, so our brains are hardwired to:

Strongly prefer what is familiar and similar to us
Quickly categorize people into “us” vs. “them” groups
Believe information that confirms our existing beliefs and worldview
Dismiss or distrust information that contradicts our views

This served us well when we lived in small, isolated communities. But the internet has exposed our brains to an unprecedented level of disagreement, diversity, and conflicting information – something they are simply not equipped to handle.

Don’t You Dare Disagree With Me – Social Sorting

When our brains encounter differing opinions and worldviews online, they go into overdrive trying to make sense of it all. The result is a process researchers have called “social sorting” – our brains automatically categorize people into teams based on their beliefs and opinions, even if those beliefs aren’t central to their identity.

This has a few key effects:

Disagreement Becomes Identity: When we encounter someone online who expresses views that clash with our own, our brains latch onto that disagreement as a core part of that person’s identity. We become less likely to seriously consider their perspective or give them the benefit of the doubt.
Confirmation Bias Amplified: Conversely, people who share our worldview become hyper-aligned in our minds. We’re more likely to believe and trust information from those who agree with us, and dismiss or distrust anything negative we hear about them.
Anger as Engagement: Social media platforms capitalize on this by optimizing to show us the most extreme, controversial, and anger-inducing content. The more angry and outraged we get, the more we engage and share – which is exactly what these platforms want.

The end result is a deeply polarized online landscape where disagreements become existential battles between good and evil, rather than differences of opinion to be debated and discussed. We see the “other side” as not just wrong, but malicious – and they likely see us the same way.

Something More Positive

So what can we do about this? Ultimately, we can’t change the fundamental limitations and biases of the human brain. But we can adapt our online environments and behaviors to work with, rather than against, our cognitive quirks.

One potential solution is to return to a more fragmented, decentralized online ecosystem – something akin to the “old internet” of forums, bulletin boards, and blogs. Rather than a single, overwhelming “digital town square,” we could inhabit smaller, more tightly-knit online communities that mirror the social structures our brains are better equipped to handle.

These communities could have their own distinct cultures, norms, and moderation approaches. If you don’t like the rules or dynamics of one community, you can simply move to another that’s a better fit. This could help reduce the extreme “us vs. them” mentality that emerges when we’re all forced into the same digital space.

Of course, this is easier said than done in an era dominated by a handful of massive social media platforms. But there are already efforts underway to build more decentralized, community-focused online spaces. One example is Ground News, a news aggregator and media literacy tool that the sponsor of the original video supports.

Ground News aims to provide more transparency around media bias and help users see the full picture on important issues, rather than just the partisan narratives. By gathering related news articles from diverse sources in one place, it allows you to compare how different outlets and political leanings cover the same stories.

The platform provides context about the reliability and political leanings of news sources, helping users better evaluate the information they’re consuming. This can help counteract the tendency to automatically trust or distrust information based solely on the source’s perceived ideological alignment.

Another useful Ground News feature is the “Blind Spot” feed, which highlights stories that are heavily covered by one side of the political spectrum but largely ignored by the other. This can help surface important information that may be getting lost in the partisan noise.

“Both sides ignored things that are inconvenient to their world views. The Ground News Blind spot feed highlights this exact thing – showing you news stories that are heavily covered by one side of the political spectrum and ignored by the other.”

Ultimately, tools like Ground News can’t solve the deep-seated cognitive biases that drive online polarization. But they can provide a starting point for developing more healthy, balanced online information diets. And by better understanding the forces shaping our perceptions, we can take more conscious control over our own beliefs and behaviors.

Smaller Online Communities

In addition to media literacy tools, a return to smaller, more decentralized online communities could be another part of the solution. As mentioned earlier, the “old internet” of forums, bulletin boards, and blogs may have been less toxic and polarized than today’s social media landscape.

The key differences were twofold:

No Algorithmic Engagement Optimization: On the old internet, there were no platforms actively trying to maximize your time spent online and engagement with content. You could simply log on, participate in discussions, and then log off when you were done.
Fragmented, Self-Governing Communities: Rather than a single, overwhelming “digital town square,” the old internet was split into thousands of smaller, more tightly-knit online communities. Each had its own distinct culture, norms, and moderation approaches. If you didn’t like the rules in one community, you could simply move to another.

This more fragmented structure may have been better suited to the limitations of the human brain. Instead of being bombarded with a constant stream of conflicting views and opinions in a single, centralized space, people could engage within smaller, more cohesive online “villages” that felt more familiar and manageable.

Of course, recreating this kind of decentralized online ecosystem in the modern era is no easy task. The dominance of a handful of massive social media platforms makes it challenging to build alternative models that can gain widespread adoption. But there are already some promising efforts underway:

Federated Social Networks: Platforms like Mastodon, Diaspora, and ActivityPub allow users to join and participate in different, interconnected social media “instances” or servers, each with their own communities and moderation approaches.
Decentralized Web3 Communities: Emerging blockchain-based technologies are enabling the creation of more user-owned, community-driven online spaces, often organized around shared interests or goals.
Forum/Discussion Platforms: While not as flashy as social media, forums, message boards, and other discussion-focused platforms continue to provide spaces for more focused, topical conversations.

The key is finding ways to recreate the benefits of those smaller, self-governing online communities of the past – the sense of shared identity, culture, and social cohesion – while avoiding the toxicity and polarization that can emerge when everyone is forced into the same digital town square.

Humanity, United

Ultimately, the root of the problem may be even deeper than the limitations of our brains or the design of social media platforms. At the most fundamental level, we are struggling to adapt to a new era where the entire human species is now interconnected in ways our evolutionary history never prepared us for.

Our brains evolved to function within the context of small, isolated tribal communities. We’re hardwired to see the world in terms of “us” versus “them” – our in-group versus the out-group. But in the modern, globalized world, that tribal mentality is proving increasingly maladaptive.

“What is striking and new about online polarisation is that all the aspects of our lives that make us individuals, our lifestyle choices, the comedians or shows we watch, our religion, sense of fashion and so on are condensed, making it seem that they are parts of opposing and mutually exclusive identities.”

In other words, our brains are struggling to process the fact that we are all part of the same global human tribe, even as we express our individuality in myriad ways. The internet has exposed us to an unprecedented level of diversity, and our cognitive biases are causing us to interpret that diversity as a threat, rather than an opportunity.

But the reality is that, at the most fundamental level, we are all in this together. We are all members of the same species, sharing a single, fragile planet hurtling through the void of space. Our differences may seem irreconcilable in the moment, but they pale in comparison to the common challenges and existential threats we face as a civilization.

“What our stupid brains don’t realize is that we are actually all on the same team: Humanity, on a wet rock speeding through space in a universe that doesn’t think about us. We are all in this together – but until our brains adjust to being able to deal with that, we might be better off being a tiny bit separated.”

So while we may need to find ways to create more manageable online environments that work with our cognitive limitations, the ultimate goal should be to foster a greater sense of shared identity and common purpose as a species. Only by recognizing our fundamental unity can we hope to overcome the divisions that threaten to tear us apart.

It won’t be easy, and it may require us to radically rethink how we structure our online and offline communities. But if we can find ways to nurture that sense of global human solidarity, perhaps we can build a future where our differences enrich rather than divide us.

Conclusion

The growing toxicity and polarization we see online and in society today is a complex, multifaceted problem without any simple solutions. But by understanding the underlying cognitive biases and social dynamics at play, we can start to develop more effective strategies for navigating this challenging new era.

Whether it’s through the use of media literacy tools like Ground News, the creation of more decentralized online communities, or a broader cultural shift towards recognizing our shared humanity, the path forward will require a combination of individual and collective effort.

It won’t be easy, and progress may be slow. But if we can find ways to work with the limitations of the human brain, rather than against them, perhaps we can build a future where our differences enrich rather than divide us. After all, we’re all in this together – on this wet rock hurtling through space.