Thread by @acerbialberto

My book, "Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age" was out two weeks ago. As promised, I follow with some threads on the content of individual chapters. Here the fifth one. 1/8 amazon.co.uk/Cultural-Evolu…

The existence of online echo chambers is consistent with psychological tendencies such as myside bias (search for, and preferentially accept, arguments that confirm our pre-existent positions), or similarity bias (copying from people similar to us). 2/8

As from the previous chapters, however, these tendencies are not blind forces, so one can ask how strong echo chambers are, and if is is true they are reinforced online. 3/8

Studies show that echo chambers are stronger offline (e.g. with traditional media) than online… 4/8 nber.org/papers/w15916

…or that around 30 percent of the political content shared in Facebook by one’s friends is of the opposite ideology” (this proportion goes down a bit because of algorithmic filtering) 5/8
science.sciencemag.org/content/348/62…

Then there is research by @p_barbera et al., showing that polarisation is not a general phenomenon but depends on the topic, or even that the usage of social media is associated to a *decrease* in political polarisation 6/8 pablobarbera.com/static/barbera…
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

@p_barbera Which resonates with the idea that people that used *less* internet (e.g. older) are also *more* polarised, properly tested by @levi_boxell et al. 7/8 pnas.org/content/114/40…

@p_barbera @levi_boxell Lot more research has been published after I finished the chapter that could not be included, but, to conclude, the idea that online interactions create echo-chambers and fuel polarisation seems to be a myth. 8/8

@p_barbera @levi_boxell The goodies. Test your confirmation bias: How the triplet "2–4–6" was generated? Can you suggest additional triplets to check whether they are consistent with the rule? journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.103…

@p_barbera @levi_boxell "We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle" was published 30 years before Facebook public opening amazon.co.uk/We-Never-Went-…

@p_barbera @levi_boxell A website that provide "multiple angles on the same story” From the right / From the Centre / From the Left (quite US biased...) allsides.com

@p_barbera @levi_boxell Doest tracking the activity of Facebook users following conspiracy theories versus users following scientific news provide any useful evidence of echo chambers? pnas.org/content/113/3/…