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The binary nature of our digital platforms only emphasizes the us-versus-them dichotomy. We are given only two options: friend or unfriend? There are no shades of grey, and there is no room for conversation — let alone compromise. They belong, or they do not. They are part of the tribe, or they are an outsider.
Wikipedia defines the term digital tribe as slang for an unofficial community of people who share a common interest, and usually are affiliated with each other through social media or other Internet mechanisms. The concept is closely related to social networking and dates back to at least 2003 when tribe.net was launched.
Traditionally, each tribe has a campfire around which they gather. These campfires tend to enable the following tribal activities:
Cooperation
Communication
Cognition
originally posted by: redtic
I think one of the biggest pitfalls of the internet is that it heightens our ability to react and lessens our tendency to think, causing these knee-jerk reactions based purely on emotion, without any rationalization, causing instant conflagration. The fact that you can see a story, a blog, a post, a tweet, and instantly and irrationally react to it without knowing context, validity, etc just grows the divide that is already there. I think the hyper-partisanship has always been there - the internet just gives us another way to channel it, albeit exponentially so.
originally posted by: introvert
a reply to: Asktheanimals
I think you are correct. The internet has changed how we approach discussing issues in general.
Not only do we have information at our fingertips, we also have confirmation bias at our fingertips. We do a quick Google search and can find a source instantly that will embolden our already-held beliefs and our confidence is strengthened by that.
Only thing we can do to battle this is learn/teach ourselves and others to be open to facts and viewpoints that contradict our own and be honest enough to admit that we may be wrong.
Honesty is the biggest problem I notice when it comes to interacting on the internet.
Too many people are dishonest and lack the fortitude to admit they are wrong, when they can simply hide behind the anonymity of the internet.