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On November 5, 2020, the streets of America’s major cities were flooded with people. As cheers, weeping and shouts of joy echoed off of skyscrapers, cries of anger and frustration reverberated from a few blocks over. Trump supporters stood in protest on the steps of city capitals while Biden supporters rejoiced nearby. In the days after the November 3 presidential election, American citizens filled the streets in support of their causes, in celebration or in protest. The division of the United States was on display for the whole world to see. 

A recent article by the Pew Research Center stated that, “A month before the election, roughly eight-in-ten registered voters in both camps said their differences with the other side were about core American values, and roughly nine-in-ten – again in both camps – worried that a victory by the other would lead to “lasting harm” to the United States.” 

The political polarization in America has reached an all-time high. The two-party-system has spawned deep antipathy between opposing sides. The gap continues to grow wider and is becoming increasingly harder to bridge. The present division of the country is undeniable; how did it get to this point, and where did it come from? 

Much of the reasoning for this partisan polarization can be attributed to echo chambers. 

According to Oxford Dictionary, an echo chamber is an environment where a person only encounters information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own. It is an environment where ones beliefs are echoed back to them through who they interact with and the content they consume. 

The home for these echo chambers? The internet, or more specifically, social media platforms. Today it is easier than ever for someone to pull out their smartphone and immerse themselves in a community that provides a fountain of content that reinforces their beliefs. It’s easy to stumble down a rabbit hole, consuming hours of information. Before we know it, we’re entrenched. These rabbit holes lead people further away from rational thinking and closer to extremism. 

The problem is not a lack of information on opposing views. If that was the problem, then the solution would simply be exposure. An echo chamber is not to be confused with an epistemic bubble. 

C. Thi Nguyen, associate professor of philosophy at Utah Valley University, explains that, “Both are social structures that systematically exclude sources of information. Both exaggerate their members’ confidence in their beliefs. But they work in entirely different ways, and they require very different modes of intervention. An epistemic bubble is when you don’t hear people from the other side. An echo chamber is what happens when you don’t trust people from the other side.” 

Since epistemic bubbles only hold one way of thinking and never consider the opposite, they’re quite easy to pop with the facts and a few counterarguments. But Nguyen argues that if you were to try to penetrate an echo chamber with facts, it would only draw its members deeper into the assurance that they are right — and you are wrong. 

Today it’s nearly impossible to find sources with information that is unbiased and strictly fact based. The echo chambers are lined with manipulative speech, buzz words, specific phrases and psychological tricks; they trap people by gaining their trust. 

Nguyen even goes as far as to compare echo chambers to cults through the way they isolate their members and lead them to distrust anyone outside the circle with opposing views. 

A common example used when talking about echo chambers is radio personality Rush Limbaugh and his influence on the conservative spectrum of American politics. In his speaking, Limbaugh is known for depicting conservatism as the only hope for America and presenting outside parties and sources as unreliable, misguided and dangerous. 

Echo chambers don’t only exist within political parties; there can be echo chamber communities structured around pretty much anything, be it anti-vaccination, breast feeding, social movements, parenting or specific diets. Members of these communities are thoroughly convinced that their opinions and beliefs are the only source of truth, and they receive comfort, acceptance and affirmation from those in the same space. 

The moral philosopher Annette Baier said that trust makes us vulnerable. 

“Echo chambers operate as a kind of social parasite on that vulnerability, taking advantage of our epistemic condition and social dependency,” Nguyen said. 

The result of political echo chambers took center stage in the recent election. 

According to another study by Pew Research Center, “As of 2015, 53% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents had political values that were mostly or consistently conservative, up from 31% in 2004. While Republicans have shifted to the right, Democrats have shifted to the left: In 2015, 60% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents had values that were mostly or consistently liberal, compared with 49% in 2004 and just 30% in 1994.”

The political divide in America has expanded as political view reinforcement strengthens the draw to one side or another. 

How are people so easily drawn into these echo chambers, and how can they sink so deep?

Social media may be the primary home in which echo chambers are stored, but the real luring is done by its algorithms. Social media algorithms sorting posts in a user’s feed based on relevancy instead of recency. These algorithms control what users see and when, prioritizing their content for them. Algorithms are tailored to make platform experience addictive, and the goal is for users to interact as long as possible. In doing this, advertising companies and social media platforms earn more money. The consumer, in a sense, is their product. Based on what a user clicks on or likes, specific ads and content will appear that are linked to these interests. 

An algorithm that has come under a significant amount of scrutiny recently is YouTube’s. YouTube houses a “recommended for you” video option on the right side of the page; it also generates recommended videos automatically after a video concludes. These videos can lead users down rabbit holes of generated related content. Videos on recent climate change events can quickly lead to opinion-based content and conspiracy theories, which can lead to someone wholeheartedly believing that the earth is flat. 

“I think the danger signs are when we find ourselves constantly turning off sources of information that don’t agree with our own, or when we are starting to talk like someone else is speaking through us,” Guy Cunningham, professor of psychology at GV, said. 

When you take a platform that was built for social purposes and start to use it as a main source of information, there are going to be issues.

Dayne Logan, professor of practice in the communication department at GV, has watched the concept of echo chambers emerge through his study of media practice. 

“If you’re spending eight, ten, twenty hours a week in a certain social media environment, that’s not good,” Logan said. “That suggests that you’re probably being indoctrinated, really by the algorithm. And they don’t mean to, for political purposes or for ideological purposes; they just want your eyeballs.”

Another issue with unfiltered social media consumption is the risk of widespread misinformation and false narratives. Similar to Wikipedia, platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram are all spaces where content can be posted regardless of whether it’s deemed to be true, factual information; content is not filtered through the lenses of objectivity or truth. Fake news outlets and hackers can easily construct their online presence to resemble that of traditional news media outlets. This can lead to dangerous outcomes. 

For example, during the presidential election of 2016 between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, a fake news source published information about members of Clinton’s campaign running an active child sex ring, out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizzeria. A North Carolina man read this information, deemed it as truth, and traveled to the pizzeria, firing a rifle inside. After this, it was discovered that the pizzeria didn’t even have a basement, let alone a human trafficking ring. Conspiracy theories such as this one highlight the importance of seeking out multiple, reliable news sources when consuming information and not taking them at face value. 

The result of believing false information can be detrimental not just to a user but also to society. 

If someone we know is trapped in an echo chamber, what do we do?

“I think the best thing we can do, is to be present,” Logan said. “And it’s difficult. I have many times been tempted to basically unfollow people who I think have fallen into a rabbit hole or an echo chamber, because I think they’re lost… but for the sake of at least maintaining relationships and hopefully improving them, I think you have to engage with respect.”

How can someone combat falling into an echo chamber? Limit screen time. Turn off notifications. Only consume information from varying reliable news sources that hold differing opinions from your own. Reject apathy toward issues, and be willing to shed the comfortability of a political party in order to seek out true, objective information. Read information that challenges you. Those who choose to wrap themselves in the security blanket of subjective truth are not living in reality. 

“There’s been a tendency over the last decade, possibly more, to basically say that there’s no such thing as objective truth — that truth is relative, that truth is different for each individual person,” Logan said. “If we’re ever going to save ourselves from misinformation, from division, from whatever path I feel like we’re on right now, we have to come to the point where we fall back in love with the idea that truth is findable. And that it is objective. And that if our goal is truly to figure out what’s true in the world, that we should reasonably be able to do that, if we all act in good faith. Relative truth isn’t the only form of truth, and the more that our society can embrace that, the more likely we are to be on the same team again and be working toward the same ideal.”