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Political polarization within the US has change into a serious problem, as Republicans and Democrats more and more inhabit separate realities on matters as numerous as election outcomes and infectious illnesses. An precise separation appears to underly a few of these variations, as members of the 2 events are inclined to reside in comparatively homogeneous communities, cluster collectively on social media, and depend on fully totally different information sources.
That is not a recipe for a useful society, and plenty of work has gone into exploring the impression of polarization, in addition to potential technique of decreasing it. Now, a crew of researchers has examined whether or not social media can doubtlessly assist the scenario by getting folks with reverse political leanings speaking to one another about controversial matters. Whereas this considerably diminished polarization, it gave the impression to be more practical for Republican individuals.
Anonymity is essential
The researchers zeroed in on two ideas to design their method. The primary is the concept that merely getting folks to speak throughout the political divide may scale back the sense that at the least a few of their opponents aren’t as excessive as they’re usually made out to be. The second is that anonymity would enable folks to deal with the content material of their dialogue, quite than worrying about whether or not what they have been saying might be traced again to them.
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