Roxane Gay Quotes

Research shows that if people are talking and listening to like-minded others, they become more dogmatic, more unified, and more extreme. Personalized Facebook experiences are a breeding ground for misunderstanding and miscommunication across political lines and, ultimately, for extremism.

Politics is always antagonistic and tribalistic. But social media puts us in isolated information bubbles. We're not just disagreeing on politics. We're disagreeing on reality in very fundamental ways.

I think our society today, the negativity is at the forefront, so you see all the people that have outrage about this or that.

All the gossip and craziness becomes a kind of sustained narrative which, in turn, can become history. It's scary.

We live in a world now where everything is tweeted and Instagrammed and tagged and now, God help us, Vined. Calling out grievances over Twitter has become an industry norm.

The news is increasingly full of mismatched people saying daft things to one another.

A democracy becomes ungovernable if a substantial portion of the population lives in an alternative reality…. How do you have a rational conversation about President Obama’s policies of he believes that Obama is a spy for Iran.

When people read 'Breitbart' every single day and convince themselves that Barack Obama is a foreign terrorist, that is not a problem of government. That is a problem of community failure, and we have to recognize that.

The country would be a lot better off if we stopped having comment sections. And if we got rid of Twitter.

Facebook Algorithms have got us all screwed up, where we only listen and talk to people with the same views as us, and I think it's not helping us as a culture to grow.

Social media has exacerbated a trend whereby people speak with complete authority on every subject, regardless of how informed they are.

Today we live in a world now where it is easy to confuse truth and popularity. And you can use money to amplify whatever you believe and get people to believe what is popular is now truthful. And what is not popular may not be truthful.

I still strongly feel that a lot of people who participated in Gamergate, who participated in this sort of thing, are doing so because they go into it with - they'll believe the version of events that fits their world view.

It's so easy to trigger everyone these days, especially if you mention President Donald Trump.

We're living in interesting times, where people seem to be able to say things which are contrary to what you would call rationalism.

Social media has created a digital latticework, but it has also, for some, created abusive commenters, silos, and validation rather than curiosity.

People have gone down this spiral of cancel culture and the idea that everything is offensive.

Social media enables us to talk about issues, shine a light on problems, and raise awareness of struggles that might have gone unnoticed. On the flipside, it also allows for a lot of noise and distractions. Sometimes it doesn't create the best environment for a healthy discussion and can lead to trolling.

Whether you have a hundred friends on Facebook or whether you're on TV or whatever, at every level, everybody has a platform. We all have a responsibility, given what's going on, to speak using that platform as much as we can, and to engage. Whether that's calling members of Congress, marching, getting involved locally, getting involved with Let America Vote, or if all you can get done during the day is you see the news and you want to make sure your hundred friends on Facebook know what you think about it, that is a really important part of this.

With the Internet there is even more fractioning since we are in echo chambers. With so much propaganda it is hard to calm down enough to listen.

In the long run I certainly hope information is the cure for fanaticism, but I am afraid information is more the cause than the cure.

What Americans seem to prefer — or at least the subset of them who live on social media — is a private square of people who already agree with them. The most successful of these preachers we call “influencers,” which basically means they get paid to manipulate you, and somehow you listen to them anyway.

Personally, what scares me most is the thoughtlessness the Internet can perpetuate.

Technology has allowed the creation of media echo chambers, so that a person can reinforce, rather than debate, viewpoints.

Technology is a double-edged sword for sure. You can use it to get in touch with somebody, to get to know somebody, to have really meaningful conversations, or you can use it to hurt and bully people.