Impact of Virtual Networks on Real-life Networks
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/social-media-destroying-human-communication-by-daron-acemoglu-2022-09
In the article “The End of Real Social Networks”, Daron Acemoglu discusses how social media has impacted our online and real-world networks and how it easily allows the spread of falsehoods and extremist ideas. Acemoglu introduces the idea of echo chambers on social media platforms like Facebook. These echo chambers and limit our online social networks, showing us content and creators from subcommunities that are specifically targeted to certain users. Our social media makes it extremely easy for misinformation and extremist ideas to spread through these echo chambers, since the people discussing these ideas are usually like-minded. Acemoglu also brings up an interesting point on how these online, artificial networks are replacing our real-world networks. Involvement in real social networks plays such an important role in our discovery and learning process as humans, socializing us and forming our values. Replacing these networks with online communities denies so many people of these real-world connections.
In my own life, I have noticed that so many people now have “online friends”, people who they have never met in person but who are very involved in their lives. I’m interested to know how these online connections have impacted their networks as well as what information they consume online.
These questions on how social media impacts our social networks relate directly to our course material. We have discussed both real-life social networks as well as social networks like the ones we have on Facebook, but it is interesting to consider how these emerging online networks impact our real-world networks. This article raises questions about the types of information, and the quality of it, that flow through our online networks. Does the information that come from our online networks negate the information we receive from our real-world networks? Which networks play a more pivotal role in the formation of our opinions and values?