Open Thread, May 4 - May 10, 2015

Gondolinian

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

I think the timing weighs against the idea that the Internet is to blame. Pew have asked US adults whether they use the Internet, and most of the change in Internet use happened in the 1995-2004 period (14% to 63%), not the 2004-2014 period (63% to 87%). One could tweak the Internet-polarized-people hypothesis so it better fits the timing, perhaps by invoking a decade-long time lag between Internet penetration and political effects, or by substituting something like "social networking" for the "Internet". But I would want to see an argument to back that up.

Online shopping or wikipedia isn't going to polarise people. I'm sure many people here were early adopters, and hung out on usenet or mailing lists, but this was not the norm. It was around 2005 when myspace turned online socialising into something mainstream, and 2008 when not being on Facebook was actively contrarian, and a few years later when even the contraians gave in.

Furthermore, in the earlier days blogs could express complex opinions. It was only with facebook and twitter that opinions boiled down to one sentence.

That has some plausibility. Contrarian that I am, however, I have some more opposing evidence in my pocket.

In one of life's little coincidences, a potentially germane Science paper appeared on the same day as your comment. I'm less interested here in the paper itself (though it has some relevance) than in a snippet from its supplementary materials:

All Facebook users can self-report their political affiliation; 9% of U.S. users over 18 do. We mapped the top 500 political designations on a five-point, -2 (Very Liberal) to +2 (Very Conservative) ideological

... (read more)

6ChristianKl11y

Blogs can still express complex opinions. The political impact of a figure like Glenn Greenwald who writes long blog posts is much higher than it was 5 years ago.