The comfortable but unbearable polarization era

 By Paula Andrea Álvarez Castillo (second semester FIGRI student, level 6 English)

Social - political polarization supported by social media is taking place in our daily lives. In fact, social media have been collecting our data and reactions about different topics according to an algorithm  that classifies information and people according to their beliefs. In this way, each person could see on their "feed" a certain type of predetermined content. People are more exposed and influenced by certain types of information, a factor that undoubtedly creates a terrible radicalization in perspectives: polarization.

In this way, Colombia is no exception. As a population, sometimes we have not realized the relevance of our social media content and the powerful message it has for our mind or political position. For instance, have you thought about how your ideology has been influenced by social media content? Or have you been thinking about why in your feed, this is usually news related to your viewpoint about different topics? It is possible that you haven't. And it is not your fault.

First, it is important to mention that the factor of Colombian historical violence has been building a path of undoubted social and political polarization. In fact, usually it is possible to view the same perspectives about political issues in social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.: likes, shared posts, views or the receptors of "emotions" and reactions are providing information to the algorithms that then make up the feed about your possible beliefs. In this sense, they are disconnecting people from other possible perspectives.

Consequently, this factor makes you become more involved and focused on the topic and perspective being discussed, with the consideration that it could even be fake. This is discussed in the documentary "The Social Dilemma" when an ex-manager of social media says: "one of these biggest problems there, is that it could be the best persuasive tool ever created”.

In this way, this is big problem of the influence in beliefs and perspectives. Now, people looking at posts think that they have enough information to construct their opinion in the "post-truth age". However, what they do not know is that behind their online activity, there is a mechanism that wants them to be in front of the screen all day. Furthermore, the person and society are the subjects that are going to be really affected by all of this.

To illustrate this fact, a clear example of how this “manipulation” works to create social polarization is  the TikTok app. When the person registers there, they start to view content according to their interests, a factor that makes people feel comfortable with this "social acceptance place". Then, when they see something or someone different, they reaffirm their values, reaffirm their “understandable perspective”, classify the difference as wrong and create this terrible polarization.

To sum up, the social and political polarization supported by social media is a terrible phenomenon in our daily lives. The algorithms have been disconnecting us from each other and creating problems in society in favor of private interests. Consequently, it is necessary that we are in touch with different types of content, with different perspectives and realities. We need to go out of our comfort zone and understand “strange beliefs”. It might not give us comfort, but this is necessary to leave this “comfortable but unbearable polarization era”.