Social Media Critiqued

RealClearPolitics links to an article in The Atlantic which blames much of the current political craziness on social media. Authors Haidt and Rose-Stockwell build a reasonable case for Facebook and Twitter being accelerants for extremism and animosity, acting in the same way gasoline will cause a fire to burn hotter and faster. They write:

Many Americans may think that the chaos of our time has been caused by the current occupant of the White House, and that things will return to normal whenever he leaves. But if our analysis is correct, this will not happen. Too many fundamental parameters of social life have changed. The effects of these changes were apparent by 2014, and these changes themselves facilitated the election of Donald Trump.

I’m inclined to think the Resistance to Trump is more a product of social media than Trump himself. If there is a group in our society which has lagged behind in social media usage, it is Trump’s much maligned ‘deplorables.’ Who has been at the social media forefront? The resisters, and especially the press, egging on each other.