Clocking five-plus hours a day on social media may leave Americans feeling more politically powerful, all while cooling their enthusiasm for democracy. That's one takeaway from a Gallup and Charles F. Kettering Foundation survey of more than 20,000 US adults, which found that heavy social media users are more likely than nonusers to believe their opinions matter, and to see protests, donations, and town halls as effective ways to sway government, per the Washington Post. However, they're also less likely to say democracy is the best system of government (57% vs. 73% among light users) and be more accepting of political violence, less willing to compromise, and less supportive of universal voting rights.
These "super scrollers" are also more likely to view facts as being subjective, 16% to 9%, Axios notes. Researchers stress that they can't say social media is to blame, as the pattern may reflect who chooses to spend so much time online, rather than what the platforms do to them, per the Post. "What I would be concerned about is whether social media might be reinforcing the tendency to associate with like-minded people who are reinforcing these more extreme beliefs," says the Kettering Foundation's Derek Barker. Experiments during the 2020 election that limited or paused some users' Facebook and Instagram activity showed little change in beliefs or behavior. The poll's authors say the findings don't prove cause and effect, but they do signal "relationships" between heavy social-media use and democratic attitudes that warrant closer scrutiny.
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