How Facebook is Like Parties.
The social value of Facebook is obvious. It gives us the ability to reconnect with old friends, stay close with family that is distant, and build new relationships as we go. However, this week Pew released a study on politics and Facebook that confirmed what a lot of us already know….Facebook is a bad medium for politics.
Among other findings, the study found:
- Typically, 73% of users “sometimes agree” or “disagree” with friends/followers political views/posts.
- 66% of users typically ignore political posts by people (most likely to keep friendships intact).
The problem with Facebook is that it is similar to a political party. ”Friendship” on a SNS is based on a wide variety of factors but political leanings are either only a piece of the pie, or not at all taken into consideration.. Essentially, one has to ignore the “bad” to get the “good”. The same rings true for parties. In order for me to find other Democrats that agree with me on marriage equality, or other Republicans that agree with me on taxes, I have to absorb a lot of disagreement on other issues. And, as we have mentioned in this space many times before, “settling” is not the way consumerism is structured in 21st Century America. and the last thing any of us should have to settle with is our beliefs.
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