Breaking the Social Media Prism

A data-driven explanation of the relationship between social media and political tribalism, along with an agenda for envisioning what more enlightened social media may look like. Bail argues that, while we've grown accustomed to the idea that social media platforms create a downward spiral of incivility, this notion obscures the deeper truth that users are the problem - not stuck in an all-powerful system that subconsciously shapes our views. Bail states that most people treat social media like a giant mirror that we use to understand ourselves and those around us. In reality, he argues, it functions more like a prism that reflects and refracts our identities, distorting our understanding of ourselves and each other. As our political behavior changes in predictable ways over time, we move on a contiuum toward outspoken extremism or silence. The book will build on online experiments, original surveys, and in-depth interviews with social media users gathered from Bail's Polarization Lab at Duke. At the heart of it, he argues, lies a new way to comprehend social media, and he proposes grassroot ways to put ideas before identities and to gently disrupt the status quo with behavioral nudges to combat polarization.