Do social media undermine social cohesion? A critical review

Abstract

We evaluate the empirical evidence interrogating the question of whether social media erodes social cohesion. We look at how networks, information exchange, and norms operate on these platforms. We also evaluate the conditions under which social media can be conducive to forming social capital and encouraging prosocial behavior. We discuss the psychological mechanisms that operate at the individual level and assess whether social media can create the environment and incentives to sustain cooperation and constructive exchange. Our discussion of the literature centers on how attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs are formed during the type of online interactions encouraged by platforms, their design, and affordances. We consider the policy implications of existing research, focusing on how empirical studies may inform regulatory efforts and platform interventions.Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit have changed how we consume and use information. These platforms decentralize content curation, allow selective exposure to like-minded sources, and offer loose moderation policies to govern interactions. Users can circumvent traditional gatekeepers of information and forge new forms of collective action. Social media platforms have also created an environment prone to conflict, polarization, incivility, and information disorders. In the past few years, social media platforms have been pushed to the spotlight of high-profile discussions that aim to identify (and, ideally, remedy) the threats these platforms currently pose to democracy (Haidt, 2022;Vaidhyanathan, 2018).But how much do we know about social media's role in weakening democracies and undermining social cohesion? Most popular treatments of social media and social cohesion are based on anecdotes and, at best, correlational data. Do social media merely reflect larger societal trends, or is there something specific to these platforms that creates or aggravates conflict? Do the effects of social media vary by platform or the affordances within platforms? The goals of this review are (1) to evaluate existingThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

Diving into the divide: a systematic review of cognitive bias-based polarization on social media

“…In earlier studies, researchers made attempts to investigate the connection between polarization and digital media. However, these literature reviews have primarily concentrated on isolated individual aspects, such as the association between social media and group polarization (Iandoli et al ., 2021), hate speech (Castano-Pulgarin et al ., 2021), political participation (Skoric et al ., 2016), social cohesion (Gonzalez-Bailon and Lelkes, 2022), public attention (Webster, 2011) and political attitudes (Hoewe and Peacock, 2020).…”

Replicating the effects of Facebook deactivation in an ethnically polarized setting

“…The events of 1974 are commemorated annually on July 20th with a celebration known as "Peace and Freedom Day" in the localities in the North, while the South observes it as a day of mourning (Eyerman et al, 2015). Following the design from BiH, we situated our replication during this commemorative period in Cyprus, asking users to deactivate from Facebook during a week around July 20th.…”

“…With the number of users of social media platforms continuing to rise globally, the impact of social media on a range of political outcomes has become a source of strident debates both inside and outside of academia (Lorenz-Spreen et al, 2023; Mosleh et al, 2022). Among the questions receiving perhaps the most attention are those that focus on how social media is affecting social and political polarization (Van Bavel et al, 2021; González-Bailón et al, 2023; Simchon et al, 2022). Understanding social media’s impact on polarization is perhaps nowhere more important than within ethnically segregated post-conflict areas, where social media content and online interactions may have an outsized impact on fragile group relations.…”

Special issue: The (international) politics of content takedowns: Theory, practice, ethics

“…From the vantage point of 2023, these assertions of neutrality appear misguided at best, or at the very least, naively insulated from the degree to which major social media platforms would come to occupy positions of regulatory power to rival, and in some cases usurp, the traditional roles of states (see Klonick, 2017). Social media companies' application of content moderation policies affords to them great power; yet by essentially “establishing norms of what information and behaviors are censored or promoted on platforms” (González‐Bailón & Lelkes, 2023, p. 162) these curated positions do not merely spill down from a raised level surface onto society but are dialectically embedded in, and refract, society. To this extent, early scholarship distinguishing “offline” and “online” ontologies read as if penned in a different world; today, there is a much stronger consensus that the behaviors, policies and identities of social media platforms shape myriad realities and the horizons of possibility that lie therein—be it to protect or to weaken democratic guardrails (Campos Mello, 2020), to mould socialization patterns among teenagers (Bucknell Bossen & Kottasz, 2020) or to accommodate a notable rise in ADHD self‐diagnoses (Yeung et al, 2022).…”