Technology

Being around too many antagonistic people is stressful.

"The impact of election stress: Is political anxiety harming your health?: Psychological science shows that politics can harm our physical and mental health, but the positive aspects of political engagement can lead to greater well-being"

"In polarized communities, they found that bonding ties, or bonds between people who are similar (in this case, politically similar), were linked with better physical and mental health (International Political Science Review, Vol. 75, No. 3, 2022). Bridging ties—connections with dissimilar people—were associated with worse overall health for people who were politically isolated."

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2024/10/managing-political-stress

There's a big difference between analyzing your enemy and letting them shout at you constantly. I can research conservative evangelicals attitudes without having to let one set up a loudspeaker next to my house.

The conservative troll types are also the ones most likely to try and argue about echo chambers because their style of rage farming doesn't work if everyone avoids them.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/01/owning-the-libs-is-the-only-gop-platform/676692/

I don't know how it could get any worse than now. Basically we're all in echo chambers whichever platform you use. Including Lemmy.

Agreement with "consensus" of whatever bucket you're placed into is rewarded, and disagreement is punished. Even if only by upvote/downvote. Switching platforms won't change much.

Nearly all social media is full of ~~eco~~ echo chambers.. I still post and follow stuff on several of the platforms. There is very little nuanced conversation.. Seems like it is more and more just an up vote or downvote storm, or people claiming one thing or another without any supporting evidence.

I look at it this way: I don't let in the crazy person on the street screaming racist garbage into my house, so I also don't have to listen to or engage with that person on the internet, either. That doesn't make my house an "echo chamber."

For a long time I tried to treat "internet people" with some level of "respect" so to say. That is, I didn't spend time blocking people and whatnot. But now? Screw em. I don't have time to listen to nonsense, so if someone tries to come in to a conversation in bad faith, it's very easy to block and move on.

Or on short-form social media like Bsky or Masto or whatever if someone posts a racist thing. Or a bigoted thing. Block and move on.

Those trolls live off of engagement so just don't give it to them. And those same trolls are the ones complaining about "echo chambers." "Waaa, no one wants to listen to my racist nonsense. It's an echo chamber!" No, you are just a trash human, and no one is obligated to listen to you.

Groups of any kind are echo chambers. That's why they exist.

I doubt that it can be any worse than tech companies with financial incentives doing it. Surrounding yourself with like minded people will surely cause some bubbles like that but since when is letting a targeted algorithm funneling us for ad revenue a better option? I don’t personally think it’s a big deal and guessing that people are just upset that their obsession with mass engagement is getting shook.

I don't know that it'll affect the echo chamber effect; you create that through your subscriptions, and avoid it by browsing "all." What will be impacted is the amount of simply shit content, both from idiots and from bots. Moderators' jobs will get harder: the bots follow the people.

It’s a valid claim, IMO. The libs leaving Twitter all seem to be VERY into Orwellian practices like “official block lists” and other absurd self-owns.

No social media site controlled by Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg is going to be a healthy experience. You will have much more varied content anywhere else.

The echo chamber is a good thing. For some reason, everyone thinks I'm obligated to read their opinions that disagree diametrically with mine, constantly, non-stop, from hundreds of thousands of bots working for propaganda. I don't.

Echo chambers are on par with human nature: we fear the unknown and flock to like-minded people. It takes a degree of discomfort to read something you don't agree with (explained rationally and with civility) and trying to argument in kind - it's easier to down-vote and here we are...

I've been on Bluesky very early on, and with the mass exodus of liberals from twitter, they are recreating their own toxic echo chambers on Bluesky now and it's bleeding through into every post they disagree with.

I think having a marketplace full of alternatives helps prevent that kind of entrenchment somewhat. Here is my problem though, who decides what an echo chamber is? I like a good back and forth conversation, but hate bad faith arguments. If people talk stupid shit, how much tolerance should one reasonably expect?

Well that's kind of baked-in to social media. If you'd otherwise talk to lots of different people in person, read much etc and now come to the internet and choose any of the mentioned platforms... That'd be bad. You're now in a smaller filter bubble. If you're already in some echo chamber and for example switch from mastodon to bluesky... that's a minor change. The situation is a bit different if you change from a nazi platform to a regular one. It's still not good. But better.

You should see the Gab echo chamber, it's absolutely horrifying.

Far right radicalization will get worse if progressives leave X. Conservatives will stick around simply because they aren't banned and then the white supremacists will be free to start pulling them without push back.

One thing to bear in mind is that, whenever someone accustomed to one platform explores another, they’ll tend to ascribe any differences between the communities to the other platform being an echo chamber of some kind.

It's like saying everyone who drinks water will die. It's correct, but it's not a problem.

Echo chambers exist everywhere.