Teens Are Scrolling Toward Polarization

Social media companies are profiting off of our nation’s political divide. Studies have shown that decreasing social media usage also decreases polarization. Image: Elana Ulitskaya

By ELANA ULITSKAYA

My fingers began to ache as I switched from TikTok to Instagram to Snapchat for hours. The last time I checked it was 9:05 p.m. and it only felt like 20 minutes had gone by. However, when I checked again, it was 11:00 p.m.

Teenagers around the world can relate to the experience of mind-numbingly consuming content for hours on end. Social media is a multi-billion dollar industry for this exact reason. These companies have mastered the algorithms that produce perfectly catered content for each individual.

This could be beneficial for teenagers because it brings like-minded groups of people together. It also has allowed important information to be spread more quickly and easily.

However, social media algorithms have also been as politically polarizing among teenagers as they have been among adults. This means that many young people find themselves heavily leaning towards either the right or left side of the political spectrum.

Many teenagers have found themselves using social media to find all or most of their political information. According to a poll by The Guardian, “More than a third (34%) of those aged 18-24 said that reading something on social media was likely to influence their vote – second only to the TV debates.” This can be incredibly dangerous because people often do not verify if what they read on social media is accurate.

“The algorithm on any social media website has made my feed really one-sided on anything politically related,” said senior Ardita Shimcani. “It’s hard to find unbiased sources on social media, so whenever I see the other side of the political spectrum, it feels very out of place.”

With so much going on in our world recently, misinformation on social media has been incredibly dangerous. During 2020 especially, we went through the horrific Covid pandemic, endured a heated presidential election, and witnessed many groups of people fight for their rights.

Social media played a major factor in spreading all of this news worldwide and helped shape many people’s opinions on these important world matters. “I was 14 at the time, but [the election] was a mix of people just spewing anger towards both candidates without any good reason and using teenagers to bank on that anger for their parties,” said junior Chloe Petit. “At one point it was just adults screaming on their platforms to vote for their preferred candidate just to avoid the other one. It put horrible ideologies into teenagers and spread so much ignorance.”

Teenagers are just beginning to figure out their political identities, and with social media being such an important part of their lives, many have been driven to political extremes. Popular influencers like Andrew Tate have driven many young men down the right-wing pipeline.

“He posts incredibly misinformed, misogynistic, homophobic videos that radicalize impressionable young minds and lead them down a path of destruction,” said sophomore Jacob Perez. “I’ve noticed that because of this there has been an uptick in young men especially adopting radical alt-right political ideals.”

Tate is surely not the only right-wing content creator these young men are consuming. Many fall into a rabbit hole of similar content, some of which extends to white supremacism.

But this same pipeline is found on the left side of social media as well. Various left-wing “hype houses” were created on TikTok in order to engage more teenagers in their ideologies.

“The videos that especially caught my attention were people debating various topics like gender rights, abortion, and marijuana legalization,” said junior Samuel Sheistman. “These were things I had never thought about before. I got absorbed into the liberal ideologies without fact-checking what I was seeing.”

Teenagers need to feel a sense of community and political social media has definitely made many feel like they belong. Their biases are constantly being justified and their beliefs are upheld through likes and comments. It becomes hard to realize that there are people out there who share a different view.

“I feel like there have been times where TikTok or Instagram reels have pulled me in to the point where I didn't recognize the ‘area’ of TikTok that I was on,” said junior Elizabeth Pinsky. “People were duetting others about ‘having the wrong views’ on a certain political topic or people were literally just doing something the polar opposite of what I was used to seeing. I had been on TikTok for hours that felt like minutes and I barely noticed that something was horrifyingly off about the content I was blankly staring at, liking, and scrolling past.”

What will happen when teenagers grow up and can legally vote? The biases that social media has created will be instilled in their minds for years and will take years to unlearn. Many teenagers look at their parents and see biased individuals, but with social media pushing political extremes, will we be any different?