Unproductive Discourse Surrounds Us — Here’s Why It’s a Problem
Social Media’s Polarization of Social Movements
You’ve probably heard the saying: “All debate is good debate;” however, there must be some point where the discussion becomes unproductive.
Right?
Social Media Debates
With the rise of screen-related debates through social media, the increase of unproductive conversation and debating has been exponential.
Unproductive discourse plagues social media but is even more seen in online social movements. social media has been a major catalyst in movements such as Black Lives Matter, the Climate Change movement, and feminism. However, the issue with these online movements is that almost all social movements have fragmented and gone from making positive changes to polarizing the internet.
Take the feminist movement for example. Within the movement are an extreme number of faceoffs, from the feminists vs the anti-feminists, the girl bosses vs the trad wives, and then a whole slew of other liberal vs. conservative fragmentation of the movement.
This is not exclusive to feminism, rather it is viewable through every single social movement to date on social media.
The problem with social media is that people have the comfort of saying whatever they say from behind a screen. By doing so people are less able to cooperate on issues. This leads to unproductive conversations where nobody accepts the other perspective and instead, debates become a battle of — “I’m right,” “No, I’m right.” Social media is promoting large-scale polarization on movements that are supposed to bring people together.
Larger Scale Issue
This is not to say that these arguments are uniquely tied to social media; however social media has increased the amount of these arguments we see.
In a society where being “right” is so glorified, we promote unproductive discourse. In highly competitive work and academic fields, people are encouraged to be the best. And what's better than always being right?
I have found that highly competitive environments are one of the main reasons behind feelings of always needing to be right. I’m sure I’m not the only one who in some moment has realized in the middle of an argument that you’ve been arguing about something stupid with no clear purpose other than proving your opponent wrong.
Moving past being self-centered and instead embracing discourse to make change is a much more productive way to view argumentation.
By promoting social media and in-person spaces as areas with less competition and more open-mindedness, the amount of productive discourse we have would be much higher.
If you take anything away from this article let it be this: By realizing that everyone has the best intentions with their perspectives and as a society being open to different ideas we could have more productive conversations that are the key to change. Take this as your sign to be more open-minded, to make change possible.
