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Essay / The Effect of Social Media on Today's Society and Political Atmosphere
Journalist Jesse Singal in his article “Social Media is Making Us Dumber. Here's Exhibit A." argues that people interested in discussing politics are victims of the brutal environment of social media. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayMr. Singal earned a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University and has studied inequality in the United States, making him a credible source on the subject. In his article, he argues that social media actually harms politics and makes it "more difficult for people who are even remotely in ideological agreement" to discuss core current events. Additionally, the media plays the role of gatekeepers; allowing people to only see what the press releases are. A good example of this shown in the article is the case of Steven Pinker. The media butchered his speech at Harvard to portray him as a supporter of the alt-right, when in reality he was explaining how the "beliefs of the alt-right are illogical." This real-life example underscores Singal's assertion that social media only makes us dumber, because we allow ourselves to be victims of deeply misleading reports and the idea that we must viciously defend our opinion against others. Singal's work should lead us not to question ourselves. only the extent to which we trust the media to report altruistically; but also to question ourselves and how we have allowed these online spaces to shape our political opinions. Politics is now influenced by every breaking news story, whether true or not, and social media spreads it like wildfire. As we can see from Singal's examples in the article, media clips can be deeply misleading, leading people to form political opinions based on falsified information. In today's world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish real news from fake news published in the online world. Social media apps allow people to use what would otherwise be information in the form of jokes, memes, and satirical articles, making it difficult to distinguish between what is factual and what is meant to be comical. . Furthermore, the article makes the case that social media is one of the main causes of the perpetuation of political polarization. Singal ends his article with a statement: “It makes us dumber.” Some worry that less informed Americans will rely on social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook to receive political information. Social media enables political homophily, or the tendency of people with the same political views to stick together. Scientists have found that in popular media, users ignore news or information reported by people with opposing political views. This perpetuates division among the American people and acts as an “echo chamber,” where people with the same political views reinforce their ideas or beliefs and amplify them through repetition in these social media outlets. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. a personalized article now written by our expert writers. Get a Custom Essay To summarize, social media limits people's ability to debate coherently and logically. Overall, journalist Jesse Singal highlights the effect..