How many Catholics, I wonder, started counting the days till the last consistory, hoping or fearing that Pope Francis would live long enough to appoint another 16 voting cardinals? How many of us waste our time by calculating the age of various bishops or cardinals, wondering how long they will remain in office and who will get a vote in the next conclave? We can never know “what would have happened,” however. Every event is analyzed through an adversarial lens. In particular, it leads to the politicization of everything. This mentality of fear warps our perception of reality in many ways. At the same time, extremists justify and solidify the fears of their opponents. Ideological extremists work to create fear in their followers they demonize the opposition, painting a dark picture of looming threats. This is why extreme views proliferate on social media they drive the most traffic and attract the most attention. Social media companies stoke this fear by creating a polarized discourse, working on the deeply-seated human fear of the “other.” Fear sharpens and concentrates our attention we are always alert to the threat of danger.
And as every advertiser knows, fear captivates an audience like nothing else.
To succeed, they need to capture as much of our attention as possible. Or more accurately, they are trying to sell us they are in the business of selling a captive audience to their advertisers. To do this, they have to sell advertising. Simply put, social media companies aren’t operating their platforms out of an altruistic desire to promote social interaction! They are trying to make a profit. But all these problems are merely symptomatic of a more fundamental issue. There are many ways in which the social media platforms work against a healthy discourse the character limit of Twitter, the rapidly-scrolling timelines, the unchecked proliferation of extreme views, the image-based nature of many media platforms, the development of ideological echo chambers, and the constant temptations to narcissism. Why has social media become such a destructive force? Why does it seem to bring out the worst in us? And why is it so difficult to pursue authentic dialogue and discussion online? I certainly agree with her assessment social media platforms in general are not suitable for serious conversations about the Faith, or about anything else, for that matter. How many of us on #CatholicTwitter will see a certain tweet, and then respond with our emotions, not with our heads? Thoughts are racing through our minds and before we can really hash them out we have already clicked the “tweet” button…I simply do not feel that Twitter is the appropriate environment to have a serious and heartfelt conversation about what and why we believe what we do as Catholics. Sorrentino advises us to “think twice and tweet once.” She quotes an address Pope Francis gave to the 2022 World Congress of SIGNIS, in which he warns against the dangers of social media and calls for careful discernment on the part of communicators. In a recent article for WPI, Christina M. Our public discourse is increasingly unhinged.