Earlier, I voiced my doubts here about a recent PNAS paper claiming that an alleged "rise in connectivity" explains an increase in polarization. PNAS was kind enough to publish our comments this week: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
www.pnas.org
More social interactions, more polarization? The evidence is not there
This is a very interesting paper but the empirical evidence presented for an increase in connectivity (in their Fig. 1E) is rather problematic. A little thread 👇(1/7):
Rense Corten 🟥
Is it possible that social media, which promised to connect the world, instead increased polarization? A model of human social dynamics predicts a sharp transition into a polarized state above a certain threshold of social connectivity. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/Gym350XnNW8
