Poll: Nearly two-thirds of Americans say social media platforms are tearing us apart

[DonViejo]

Source: NBC News


Sixty-four percent of Americans think social media does more to divide than unite us, a majority that cuts across party lines.

May 9, 2021, 12:00 PM EDT
By Mark Murray

WASHINGTON — Most Americans admit they use social media at least once a day, but they also believe platforms like Facebook and Twitter are doing more to divide the nation than to bring it together, according to brand-new results from the latest national NBC News poll.

Overall, 66 percent of adults say they use social media once a day or more, versus 33 percent who don't.

The numbers are essentially unchanged from when the poll asked this same question in 2018 and 2019.

But 64 percent of Americans think social media platforms do more to divide us, and that includes majorities of Republicans (77 percent), independents (65 percent) and Democrats (54 percent), as well as majorities of whites (70 percent), Latinos (56 percent), young adults (61 percent) and seniors (71 percent).

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-nearly-two-thirds-americans-say-social-media-platforms-are-n1266773

[Budi]

1. The obvious culprits to blame are FB & Twitter. But it is the blogs, dark web, & lesser known

....that I find more concerning.

Many are just downright frightening, & they all have followers linking & sharing ..
It is where foreign & fringe hate resides in unnoticed areas of social media

[certainot]

39. FB and twitter are part of the free speech spectrum and getting too much blame. media

is studying fish without water and completely ignoring rw radio - a 95% unchallenged coordinated monopoly - which should not be considered part of the free speech spectrum. a lot of the crap on FB and T and Fox is based on years of unchallenged repetition only rw radio can do. they just hype and exaggerate the same crap aimed at the same democratic bogeymen and women team limbaugh have been lying about for decades. QAnon was preceded by ten months of limbaugh, prob fed by putin intel, making excuses for trump, blaming the obama clinton soros "deep state" and they hyped the same crap for a younger and the abuse victim audiences

[FarPoint]

2. What if there was an annual fee for each site?

Expense too...Could this cut down the propaganda hate?..Like a paywall thing or membership?

[quaint]

7. Good grief.

[Blue_Adept]

25. Well, that's one way to keep "some people" away from it.

[Karma13612]

32. No.

There has to be better ways to catch the fake accounts and the propaganda trolls, both foreign and domestic.

[Botany]

3. Yup! I am losing two long time friends because of the really sick disinformation be pushed by ...

... the right via the social media and the web. Really good people, smart, and I love 'em dearly but
they have been sucked into some kind of right wing vortex.

One to Paul E. Alexander, of the American Institute of Economic Research

https://www.aier.org/staffs/paul-e-alexander/ 2 seconds on his page is enough to see total bullshit by a Trumper who
wants the C-19 disease to keep spreading so he is pushing lies that are backed by "facts and figures." Masks don't work crap.

The other has been gone for some time now. But his latest deep dive into the right is into the "Heterodox Academy"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterodox_Academy
which pushes both-siderism bull shit as cover for their backing some really awful crap. The white male is the most put upon
person in America & liberals are stopping conservatives from having a voice. He also fell for the 2016 Facebook scam
which had Russia pushing the made up story of Hillary and her evil emails.

[AZLD4Candidate]

8. I've blocked 685 people on my personal SM page

I give people one chance to pull out of the skid using logic to debunk them and then I get "put down the donuts, fatso" and that's that.

[Botany]

14. These two are more than just friends

These right wing/Russian/Fox News and so on disinformation/hate places are really a cancer on America.

We lived together in college, have been to weddings, divorces, funerals, new years get togethers
for > 30 times, traveled with one over 200 miles in the bush in Canada in canoes, boats, float planes,
fishing/camping and drinking as we watched the Northern lights, shared a girl friend or two (not at the
same time), meals, dogs, and the gentle warmth of friendship. They are both smart and educated
people too. One posted on a text chat some "daily caller/Tucker Carlson" crap and the other linked to
a right wing hit piece on Kamala Harris .... she doesn't like black people because she put them in jail.

When I point out the falseness of their arguments such as K. Harris was the D.A. for San Francisco &
the A.G. for the State of California (she put blacks in jail) that either point that I'm making it personal
or that this is why Americans can't get along with each other. Which is the narrative that the Heterodox
Academy pushes. I don't dare bring up that I don't want to get along with "the other side" Because last
election I had to deal w/some Trumpers @ a precinct in OH where I was doing some election protection
work .... some are just really horrible dumb fuck bullies .... or in 2004 in OH I watched as "they" stole
the election.

I feel really sad and wish I could do something. I feel like I'm losing important touch points in my life's
journey.

[SWBTATTReg]

4. People are way too invested in their cell phones, etc. A 2017 survey by ...

King Online University showed that:

People Touch Their Phones an Average of 2,617 Times Per Day
...
...
iPhone Owners Unlock Their Phones 80 Times Per Day
...
...
Americans Spend an Average of 5 Hours Per Day Browsing
...
...
For those interested in reading the article, the link is at https://online.king.edu/news/cell-phone-addiction/

What really gets me more than anything (and we've all seen it), is the relentless attention paid to these devices, despite being surrounded by friends and others at the same time (sure, go ahead and ignore me while I am right there talking to you, etc.)...

It is kind of rude. Pay attention to the folks who went out of their way, put their devices down, and are paying attention to you, one on one.

Maybe if anything (and I do this), leave the cell phone at home or in the car. I suspect some would suffer withdrawal pains...ha ha heh, but it is a start, start weaning yourself away for even a little bit. You would be amazed at the difference, I suspect.

[AZLD4Candidate]

9. In China, my wife can tap on her iPhone, watch a program on the iPad, and watch TV at the same time

I always joked that Chinese people are born with a bicycle grafted to one hand and a cell phone grafted to the other.

We'd go out to dinner and watch young people (I'm 42, my wife is 31) tap on their phones on a date and never once talk to each other.

I don't know who said (Einstein I believe) "I weep for the today that technology replaces social interaction" (sic) but it's happened and whomever said it was absolutely correct.

[kimbutgar]

16. My husband and I were eating dinner out once and this couple came in and went on their phones

immediately and never said a word to each other during the entire dinner.

[Crowman2009]

34. I only use my phone when the TV isn't available and to avoid wasting paper on news sources.

Hence why I go to this site.

[SWBTATTReg]

43. Smart!

[PSPS]

12. Like this...

[SWBTATTReg]

31. Ha ha heh...wouldn't surprise me one bit that something like this would occur, and the

event wouldn't even be noticed by anyone...

Thanks for the laugh!

[Champp]

5. the evil republican-russian cyber borg is ever active at sowing shit

to drag America down.

It sucks.

[Baitball Blogger]

6. Personally, social media is revealing the true character of people that we once wasted our

time on. See, they knew their ugly nature and also knew how to keep it from us. Trump outed them, and now we can make informed decisions as to who we associate with.

[Midnight Writer]

10. There used to be an old saw that if we could tell what was going on in other people's minds,

then we would be more understanding and we could all get along.

Social media has dispelled that theory.

[question everything]

11. Social media leads to tunnel vision

I get a print newspaper which attempts to provide balanced image, so opinions and news stories come from varying sources.

Social Media leads visitors to read only what confirms their pre conceived notions.

Even on these pages posts from a respectable source like the WSJ - where the news and opinion departments are separate - generate alerts and derision. Even the opinion sections had op-eds by Sherrod Brown, Katie Porter and others.

[patphil]

13. Living in a 5 inch world; escape from reality.

Artificial worlds like in the Anime "Sword Art online" and "Ready Player One" are providing an alternative to personal social interaction.
This is just going to become more and more a part of many people's lives.
When it becomes obsessive, it becomes quite debilitating.

[bucolic_frolic]

15. In election 2000, a Yahoo user posted on a message board with the ID

weeding_is_plant_holocaust

It got a chuckle at the time, but it was prescient. Every time we sort and categorize, we divide. In social media we are all put in little slots, many slots, little groups and boxes and cubbyholes. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes not, but they always make us different from the next user. It's a freight train now.

[roamer65]

17. It's a very large double edged sword.

All depends on HOW we use it.

It’s only as good as it’s users.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. "All we need to do is make sure we keep talking" - not one of Stephen Hawking's best observations

As used on Pink Floyd albums. It turns out, the more we hear what all our fellow citizens think, the more we decide some of them are arseholes.

[LastDemocratInSC]

19. I have never seen the login screen for Facebook

or any other social media platform. Those things are not interesting to me. I see little value in them. Just one person's opinion.

[BadGimp]

20. At the end of the day Social Media is a reflection of US.

We (collectively speaking) have yet to master these new communications platforms etc.

But the platforms reflect "US", not the platforms themselves.

"We" need to evolve and grow collectively, not all the same way or the same time, but as progressively and collectively as we are able to in the moment.

I've been "online" since 93. Right away I immediately began to observe the differences in peoples behavior online vs in the "meatspace". It became clear to me early on that it would take a few decades or so before we'd learn how to exist in both spaces in an acceptable level of harmony. We ain't there yet.

In other words, the problem is not the Platforms, it's US.

Be nice people and enjoy yourself and each other.

[twodogsbarking]

21. According to social media

social media is tearing us apart. I can see clearly now.

[twodogsbarking]

36. The internet has changed the world.

There was no plan. Anti social media is a part. Evolution is an odd thing.

[sinkingfeeling]

22. I agree.

[elleng]

23. It's true, AND they're also bringing SOME of us together.

[mac2766]

24. I no longer (for several years) participate in any social media other than DU...

And I vote a big HUGE!!!!!! Yes it does divide us.

[Warpy]

26. They know this but they won't let go

Until those two thirds get some backbone and realize the only way to solve the problem is to abandon the services, it will continue to be a problem.

Right now, they think it's all those other people who are fools. No, it's not. It's built into those platforms. Radicalization is how they keep people on their services and clicking away.

[johnthewoodworker]

27. Yes, social media is tearing us apart. Just like radio, tv, computers, and everything else.

[Elessar Zappa]

29. Well, technology's not going away

so society better learn ways to deal with it.

[deurbano]

28. In my family, it was the combination of Trump and Facebook. Trump unleashed something in my MAGAt

sister... or at least, made her feel free to express it... and then FB was available as a forum for her hatefulness. She also lies about personal situations on FB to fit her political agenda, and it's hilarious to see this financial parasite (who has relied on parental help her entire life) present herself as some "self-made" woman, while trashing government initiatives (like student loan forgiveness) for people who haven't had her advantages.

[Skittles]

40. very sorry, deurbano

I would be beside myself in any of my siblings were MAGAts, yuck

[marie999]

30. We don't post pictures or write anything on FB.

It is used to message our family as a group.

[Karma13612]

33. I get my news feed via

Facebook. MSNBC, CNN, HuffPo, WaPo, NYT, etc.
I rarely connect with friends on FB. I had to block my SIL because she turned out to be a really scary person when it comes to politics. She said horrible things about Gov Cuomo and embarrassed me on my own post on my own facebook page. I didn’t contact her, I just deleted her post and blocked her and unfriended her.

I also use FB as a feed for many of my interests like Fountain pens and Photography, and some great craft/hobby groups. I learn, I contribute and I grow.

I would be left with quite a large hole in my online resources if I gave up FB.

But, I am a pragmatist and critical thinker. I don’t believe anything based on a single report. Everything needs to be verified. And I strongly defend my position on political sites. I don’t let BS go uncontested when I see it being disseminated.

[Crowman2009]

35. Politically, I use social media to connect with people who are fans of what I watch, similar hobbies

and similar political views. Plus I think it also exposes soon-to-be former friends shitty political views.

[Karma13612]

41. Yup! Eom

[JI7]

37. The comments sections are the worst

[FakeNoose]

38. To me it's the lack of manners that people display on social media

Somehow people forget the manners they were raised with, when they type their stuff online. They aren't saying it face to face, so they think it's OK to let loose with insults and rudeness that they'd never say in person.

Of course we all have different opinions, and I don't expect anyone to automatically agree with me. When I don't even take the time to explain my position clearly, doesn't that make it partially my fault when another person misunderstands me? But if I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and making an effort to see their side, shouldn't I receive the same courtesy in return?

It's the simple give-and-take we would normally allow in conversation that apparently very few of us have learned to do online. I'm not talking about anyone here on DU, but I've encountered so many people on other SMS who are outright rude on purpose. Then they congratulate themselves. No thanks.

[peppertree]

42. No. Republicans and their handmaids in right-wing media and hate radio are.

Have been for the past 30 years.

[Kaleva]

44. Headline says "tearing us apart". Body of article says "divide".