Or at least, to be a little closer to what this Current Opinion in Psychology study is really saying, social media creates a false sense of what “normal” is, amplifying every extreme opinion and reaction until those extremes seem perfectly rational, mainstream ways to think and act… when in fact they’re profoundly peculiar:
We argue that norms generated on social media often tend to be more extreme than offline norms which can create false perceptions of norms–known as pluralistic ignorance. We integrate research from political science, psychology, and cognitive science to explain how online environments become saturated with false norms, who is misrepresented online, what happens when online norms deviate from offline norms, where people are affected online, and why expressions are more extreme online. We provide a framework for understanding and correcting for the distortions in our perceptions of social norms that are created by social media platforms. We argue the funhouse mirror nature of social media can be pernicious for individuals and society by increasing pluralistic ignorance and false polarization.
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When people stare into the mirror they do not see a true version of reality, but instead one that has been distorted by a small but vocal minority of extreme outliers whose opinions create illusory norms. In turn, these outliers are often amplified by design features and algorithms that prioritize engaging content.
Online discussions are dominated by a surprisingly small, extremely vocal, and non-representative minority. Research on social media has found that, while only 3 % of active accounts are toxic, they produce 33 % of all content [4]. Furthermore, 74 % of all online conflicts are started in just 1 % of communities [5], and 0.1 % of users shared 80 % of fake news [6,7]. Not only does this extreme minority stir discontent, spread misinformation, and spark outrage online, they also bias the meta-perceptions of most users who passively “lurk” online. This can lead to false polarization and pluralistic ignorance, which are linked to a number of problems including drug and alcohol use [8], intergroup hostility [9,10], and support for authoritarian regimes [11]. Furthermore, exposure to extreme content can normalize unhealthy and dangerous behavior. For example, teens exposed to extreme content related to alcohol consumption thought dangerous alcohol consumption was normative [12].