The Internet. The cloud. The World Wide Web, whatever you want to call it. At this point, it’s everywhere. It connects people around the world, and through it, we can interact with others we’d never have encountered otherwise.

Our instant communication with people on the other side of the world allows us a freedom of information. It allows us to access new perspectives on people’s lives, culture, and experiences, and through it, we can learn to empathize with one another. Well… hypothetically. 

Technology was supposed to remove the barriers of communication– we could’ve adopted a sort of global compassion, caring and empathizing with people around the world.

But instead, the algorithm that is formed by every action we take online feeds us the exact things we want to see. Rather than expanding our worldview, it narrows it. It shows us only the exact things that will reinforce our pre-existing biases.

We’re drawn into communities that reflect what we believe, that will tell us what we want to hear. We all want to be affirmed; we want others to tell us that we are correct, and the internet does just that. It drives us into online societies where everyone thinks exactly the same things as you. 

It used to be that these beliefs were spread out, isolated. ‘Oh, that’s Billy, yeah, he’s a little crazy. Apparently, he thinks the world is flat– can you believe it?’

But with all the interconnection our world faces, all these ‘Billys’ can find one another, connect, and reinforce one another’s beliefs, forming tight-knit circles of validation, with everyone’s beliefs growing more extreme, leading to this ‘echo chamber’ phenomenon. 

This is where they become dangerous. The mob mentality and insulation from opposing viewpoints lead to the group becoming almost incestuous, feeding off each other’s intensity– everyone becoming more extreme in their views and more convinced that their opinion, and theirs only, is the undeniable truth.

They legitimize their beliefs through numbers, because if anyone were to disagree with the mob, well, they must just be stupid, because look at all these people who agree with me– we couldn’t possibly all be wrong. 

And with everyone so convinced that they are right, it doesn’t always stay online. Some take action on such ideas.

A 2024 research study published by Nature found that social media was a ‘leading indicator’ of hate crimes against migrants and LGBTQ+ communities in Madrid, Spain. Hateful comments online often precede real-world crimes and violence. 

The shooter of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting frequently posted anti-Semitic content and was fueled by his own echo chamber of white supremacy, and others have been found to have done much the same. 

Social media platforms are essentially designed to maximize user engagement with the content, and the more controversial the topic, the more it grabs attention, gaining traction and reaching a larger audience as it goes.

This, combined with the way the algorithm curates what you see to your specific tastes, social media wildly limits your exposure to content that doesn’t explicitly reinforce your already pre-established beliefs.

This leads to shrinking common ground. A disappearance of compromise, often to the extent that respect and communication between opposing perspectives is lost.

Every deep-seated bias is cemented and fed through the agreement of others, distorting our view of reality. If you only hear what you want to hear, misinformation can spread quickly, fracturing our already divided communities. Yet it doesn’t need to be this way.

To escape from these echo chambers, we need to intentionally expose ourselves to (and be actually open to receiving) opinions and rationale that don’t match our own.

We need more randomness, more serendipity in the things that we encounter online to see a fuller picture of the world. 

Not just the version tailored to our preferences, but both sides of the story. We need to be made aware of our own biases and avoid getting sucked into these affirming cycles. 

Because if we don’t, we risk being trapped in these digital loops, where all we hear is our own voice echoed back to us, urging us on, while the truth fades further into the background, overwhelmed by the noise.