How Twitter Degrades Discourse and Encourages Distortions: Illustrated by Ex-Pentagon Official Ryan Goodman

There are multiple reasons why political discourse is degraded by the fact that it now plays out primarily on Twitter, reasons that are inherent in that site’s format and functionality: the elimination of nuance due to space constraints; mob behavior coercing adherence to group-think orthodoxies; the addict-like, insatiable craving for retweets and likes, which the brain processes as approval and for which it thus produces chemical rewards of ecstasy and a sense of worth; and highly tribalist...