A group of researchers in the USA conducted extensive research on the world’s largest social networks, Facebook and Instagram. The first stage of this research was shared with the public. The research revealed that groups and pages on Facebook create ideological echo chambers. Saying that they have accessed countless data, experts have revealed how Facebook groups and pages affect users.
First of all, let’s explain the issue of “echo chambers”: In the media, echo chamber means that an idea or belief is constantly repeated under a certain system and people reinforce them. You can only get information about a particular view in the echo chambers you are in. Opposing views cannot enter your echo chamber. Therefore, you become more and more attached to a certain view, and you move away from different views at the same speed. It was understood that groups and pages on Facebook led to exactly this situation.
Group and pages contain too many ideological divisions
The research, which included striking results, revealed that users who hang out on Facebook groups and pages are exposed to much more ideological divisions. That is, people concentrating on a particular idea hardly saw the other views. As a natural consequence of this, users started to discriminate and cause mass polarization. They discriminated against people who didn’t think like them, and didn’t care at all what people with opposite views thought.
False information is circulating in such media!
The research revealed that groups and pages on Facebook are highly effective in spreading false information. Managers repeatedly shared news that were written in accordance with their own ideology, and they did not care about their accuracy. This is the biggest problem with echo chambers. People in the echo chamber hardly question whether a shared piece of information is true. Worst of all, you don’t realize that as long as you’re in it, you’re stuck with the ideas in your own echo chamber.
It has been determined that there is more misinformation in the pages and groups that support the right view.
Research on groups and pages on Facebook revealed that users of the right political view are much more exposed to false and false information. We may have readers who will criticize us for saying so. Let us state that in the study, the results of which were published in the journal Science, the experts reached this conclusion by using Meta’s third-party news confirmation system.
The research reveals that regardless of their political views, people should be more careful when logging into Facebook Groups and pages. Because the research revealed that users’ browsing on the flow page protects the user against the echo chamber. Users who looked at their friends’ posts instead of groups and pages weren’t as impressed as others… So, even if you don’t like it, looking at what people with different opinions share is still beneficial for you at the end of the day…