Social media more like a funhouse mirror distorting reality, researchers say

Researchers at New York University have – unsurprisingly – concluded that social media isn’t an accurate reflection of society. It’s more like a funhouse mirror distorted by a small but vocal minority of users. Algorithms do their part, too.

Every day, users casually scroll through an estimated 300 feet of newsfeed on social media – roughly the height of the Statue of Liberty.

As they casually scroll through this content, they’re forming beliefs about the state of the world as well as inferences about the beliefs of members of their own social network and community.

However, these inferences are often based on the most extreme voices, a new study has found. It says that social media platforms – Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram to name a few – are essentially funhouse mirror versions of social norms. They’re created when modern technology interacts with human psychology.

This is the main conclusion of a research paper published in the “Current Opinion in Psychology,” which argues that norms generated on social media tend to be more extreme than offline norms.

The world of false social norms

This, of course, creates false perceptions of norms and is especially important this election season because policy makers and shapers increasingly – and mistakenly – build their programs on supposedly representative opinions heard, read or seen on social media.

But “when people stare into the mirror, they do not see a true version of reality, but instead, one that has been distorted by a small but vocal minority of extreme outliers whose opinions create illusory norms,” says the paper.

Indeed, research on social media has found that while only 3% of active accounts are toxic, they produce 33% of all content. Furthermore, 74% of all online conflicts are started in just 1% of communities.

A study by researchers at the Ben-Gurion University in Israel and the Northeastern University in Boston recently found that during the 2020 US presidential election season, the vast majority of fake news on Twitter, now X, came from a very small cluster of users – the so-called ‘super sharers.’

Not only does this extreme minority stir discontent, spread misinformation, and spark outrage online, it also biases the meta-perceptions of most users who passively “lurk” online, say the researchers.

That’s because when a norm is ambiguous, such as deciding whether an action is permissible, people base their decisions on the group consensus. This way, false norms emerge, and more moderate or neutral opinions essentially have no chance of being noticed.

“This can lead to false polarization and pluralistic ignorance, which are linked to a number of problems including drug and alcohol use, intergroup hostility, and support for authoritarian regimes,” reads the paper.

Modern tech rewards extreme behavior

Moreover, these outliers are often amplified by design features and algorithms that prioritize engaging content. That obviously translates to juicy revenue for the tech companies behind the social media platforms.

The issue is how social media platforms curate the feeds visible to users. According to the researchers, they normalize extreme norms, from unrealistic beauty standards on Instagram to “outrageous benchmarks for success” on LinkedIn.

“Even if people recognize that certain visible behaviors (e.g., beauty norms) do not reflect how people actually are, they are still reinforced through ‘likes,’ signaling what is socially desirable,” says the paper.

The intricacies of feed curation aren’t even surprising. Social media operates in an attention economy and is designed to elicit as much engagement as possible, before then selling ad space to companies based on indices of attention.

The majority of social media users say they would prefer more positive and nuanced rather than negative and extreme content online.

“As such, there is a strong incentive for users to create content that captures attention and maximizes engagement – rather than content that reflects reality,” say the researchers, adding that, unfortunately, hostile or extreme content then tends to dominate online discourse.

A recent analysis of the algorithm on X found that it prioritizes evocative content, and Kyle Chayka writes in his book “Filterworld” (reviewed here) that tech giants are perfectly content with the way things are now.

It’s thus ironic that the majority of social media users say they would prefer more positive and nuanced rather than negative and extreme content online.

To the researchers, the discrepancy suggests that these false norms make polarization seem more pervasive than it actually is – “and certainly more than people want it to be.”

Moreover, although incivility from politicians is increasing and even socially rewarded online, people report that they want to hear less from uncivil politicians. But the platforms are making sure users, including politicians, wouldn’t be motivated to post anything actually nuanced.