The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency

by John Dickerson

Sixty-eight percent of us get our news from social media.67 This turns our individual experience into a group one. “When we encounter opposing views in the age and context of social media, it’s not like reading them in a newspaper while sitting alone,” writes Zeynep Tufekci of the University of North Carolina, who studies the social impact of technology. “It’s like hearing them from the opposing team while sitting with our fellow fans in a football stadium. Online, we’re connected with our communities, and we seek approval from our like-minded peers. We bond with our team by yelling at the fans of the other one. In sociology terms, we strengthen our feeling of ‘in-group’ belonging by increasing our distance from and tension with the ‘out-group’—us versus them.”