How Facebook Makes Us Dumber - Bloomberg View

From a Cass Sunstein social media reality check

"The consequence is the “proliferation of biased narratives fomented by unsubstantiated rumors, mistrust, and paranoia.” And while the study focuses on Facebook users, there is little doubt that something similar happens on other social media, such as Twitter -- and in the real world as well.

Striking though their findings are, Del Vicario and her coauthors do not mention the important phenomenon of “group polarization,” which means that when like-minded people speak with one another, they tend to end up thinking a more extreme version of what they originally believed. Whenever people spread misinformation within homogenous clusters, they also intensify one another’s commitment to that misinformation."

How Facebook Makes Us Dumber - Bloomberg View