2024 was a very exhausting election year that felt unprecedented with social media’s rise as an essential media resource post-pandemic. While recency biases have a profound influence on this opinion, it feels like our nationwide society is more divided than ever.
Politically, our democratic system thrives on operating divide and conflict. After all, it is a two-party system that can symmetrically be analogized to the ideologies of black-and-white thinking. If we think one side is correct consistently, we frequently tend to perceive the other side as incorrect—almost like an unbalanced pendulum.
Multiple video essays on YouTube talk about the “death of nuance”, and it feels like our peers find the most validation and comfortability in this unbalanced pendulum because it reassures our perspectives without considering and challenging their flaws equally.
Modern politics, and politics throughout history as a whole, have always been a visualization of the ideological conflicts that millions of individuals have and how we struggle with the sensitivity of opposing ideas. Social media and the ease of access to constant communication have created a larger spotlight on our unstable political collaborations by amplifying certain prospects while suppressing others.
Echo chambers and confirmation biases influence our emotions through the intensity of reassurance and validation they provide. Surrounding yourself with people who agree or think the same as you do about a certain subject creates a space that is in opposition to the other perspectives, which creates an interesting emotional conflict and social dilemma; We will recognize the commonalities in our own side of an argument and become confused as to how the other side has such a large disconnection from our similarities.
Having a pendulum that is constantly unbalanced has had a large impact on our emotions because it taps into our fears of rejection and abandonment. We want to feel heard, expressed, safe and secure—yet what we perceive from our peers is the opposite. Political perspectives have become more emotionally driven than ever before because a lot of us are using politics as a way to comprehend or enact change that verifies our insecurities, and when our approach is questioned, we tend to become argumentative and defensive.
Intriguingly, as social media continues to create a space in our culture as a format of expression and individuality, it has also platformed interactions with others who contrast heavily with our own needs. Social media’s personalized algorithms and ‘For You’ pages are recommendations that blend content that fits our needs and content that infuriates us. It keeps users engaged because anyone is one swipe away from reading a message that can be validating or invalidating. The unpredictability of what the next post will reveal is exactly what makes our current societal structure addictive and emotionally exhausting—even after it gives you the dopamine hit you were looking for.
Gabe Kanae can be reached via email at gkanae@sagebrush.unr.edu or via Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.
