Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

With recent controversies popping around I thought Now would be a good time to ask this: Do you think that the internet, if not the entire human race, is becoming polarized to the the extreme left and right?

The internet is a very polarized place because on the internet, as obvious as it sounds, you can choose what information you want to consume and totally block out the other side of anything. The same goes for cable news programs like FOX, CNN, PBS, etc. that all are leaning towards one side, biased.

My government teacher showed us a study of where people got their news, and many sources that are often objective (Like NPR, newspapers, etc.) were declining while cable and internet were increasing extremely rapidly. (It's not the pic I posted, but it's close)

But the thing about people going to biased news sources is that they are less informed. Another study (Which I don't have the picture for, sorry) showed that people who listened to the NPR beat everyone else in a test of informativeness on both foreign and domestic affairs. And the people who watched FOX news were dead last, even losing to people who watched no news ayy lmao

tl;dr Polarization is bad and the internet is contributing to it

Forgive me for asking, but I have seen this "left and right" thing and I don't understand it.
I'm not from the US, so yeah.
What is the left and right?

The Left is the liberal side for progress and social change, usually more to the socialist side while the right is the conservative side for keeping things the way they are and is more to the capitalist side.

Actual socialists would probably scoff at the idea of American Democrats being described as socialists. Even the Progressive wing (often just called "the Left") is Keynesian capitalist far more than it is socialist.

I almost added a note to my post: "inb4 particle corrects me"

I am not very well informed, so I can't make anything factual beyond what I saw pasted to the rock I am under. In conjecture, I think any polarization towards any of the sides could eventually lead to some version of an Orwellian Nightmare. You have to have some levelheadedness before making an argument on either side, and radical beliefs on either side can take that calmness out from under you, and make your debate more opinionated. I think we need to stay away from either sides' extremes, but this is merely just, as mentioned, conjecture.