The Tribe Has Spoken: Why Social Media Divides As Much As It Connects

Every conversation about modernity and globalisation always curbs round to the subject of social media. “We’re more connected than we’ve ever been etc. etc. etc.”

I, like many of you, roll my eyes when an overly smiley Gen-Xer in a crisp, ironed outfit talks about “Generation #” on breakfast shows or any other panel discussion shows. Inevitably, it’s always the “great harm” social media has supposedly inflicted on this contemporary age that’s discussed. And their points are misguided for the most part. But there is a definite culture that exists on this aspect of life today, which doesn’t necessarily herald the opposite of progress, but nor does it propel anything forward either.

We live in online tribes

In the simplest anthropological sense, the social circles you run with online are like tribes. You gather around other like-minded people amongst the fires of common interests, shared ideology and so forth. Where people had to actively put effort into maintaining a hobby, or seeking others like them in the past, you can now just run a quick search and connect instantly.

And conflict is easy to find

The thing with tribalized forms of humanity, however, is that you often find conflicts arise at the blink of an eye when different tribes encounter one another. See for yourself. Open the comment section of any post vaguely political on Facebook, and watch as civility unravels one misspelled comment at a time. In a forum where the opinions vocalized are so amplified, the volume is deafening.

They’re also super insular…

Yet another characteristic endemic to tribalized society is how insular it is. Tribes keep to themselves, and seldom integrate those different to them. In social media, rarely are you rewarded for going against the established grain of the proverbial wood. You are praised for conformity to the accepted and often attacked for offering something removed from the norm. Any semblance of discourse rarely comes with civility, while the majority devolves into an ad hominem fist fight. A fist fight where no one wants to hear the other person out, and only seeks to be heard above everyone else. Most of the time, people don’t even bother to read what others have to say, or even bother to read what they are reacting about. They just want to continue living as a series of reactions. As a result, selective pieces of information are taken only to support their own point of view, and confirmation bias presents itself in its peak form.

We live in a time of unprecedented access and connectivity. It can be easy to get lost in a sea of stimulus, and commit to actions quicker than we can process the consequences. I guess what I’m trying to say here is, behind all the ones and zeroes, it’s important to remember there is a living human being behind it. They breathe, they bleed, and they feel like you. This is the age of information. Be more open to points of views alternate to your own. For if we continue burrowing our own tunnels with no regard for our neighbour, we run the risk of being no better off than those chimps beating each other with a bone in the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

by Garry Lu