Blog Post 11

 An echo chamber is when someone only encounters ideas or beliefs that are the same as the ones that they already hold and believe to be true. Today, many people find themselves stuck in these echo chambers due to social media and the division in the country.

Often, people who scroll through social media only follow accounts that they agree with and only see content from those accounts. Which prop up their ideals and beliefs while demonizing the other side. For example, many news anchors and celebrities have compared President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. Someone who sees this comparison over and over in their little

echo chamber is going to have their beliefs that Trump is an evil fascist reinforced, which will continue to radicalize their views, until the point that they look down on or even hate people on the other side of the aisle.

Members of both political parties do this. When you are inside an echo chamber, you cannot think critically for yourself, and you rely upon and allow others to think and make up your beliefs for you. Only watching one news station or only following the same few account, or only talking and debating with people who already have the same beliefs as you will create this echo chamber, and allowing yourself to stay in the echo chamber and not branching out and hearing other points of view makes you a very shallow person with limited intelligence.

Through my social media I notice that I do only follow political commentators from the groups and party that I support so I have now gone through and made sure its not just one group i am hearing from it is multiple with diffent view points even if I disagree, when before this with major events or facts about people I would check with differnt news groups or sources from both sides of the asisle so at minimum I heard and understood the agrumument of the other side.

As Americans, we cannot allow the fear-mongering and dehumanization of people in the other political party in these echo chambers to divide us.