Group Think

On the Internet, we are allowed to pick and choose that communities we want to be involved in and most of those people will make the same choices as others, even in a wide range of people. In our 2.0 societies, there is an abundance of information, almost too much information, and people continue to stick to their own point of view and forget about the other information. If people pick their own type of entertainment and information, it might be harder for people to connect socially. Some of the websites are dedicated to hate groups, with over one hundred thousand visitors, and with some over a million. One of those groups is called the Unorganized Militia, “’which believes that the federal government is becoming increasingly dictatorial with its regulatory power over taxes, guns and land use.’” They have one main website with links to others on their viewpoints. Group polarization can become a problem within these groups. Group polarization is, “people are likely to move towards more extreme point in the direction to which the group’s members were originally inclined.” If people are discussing the same thing, they will all get to the same conclusion but in a very extreme form. This became part of the Unorganized Militia where they continued with racial hate groups, which probably wasn’t their intention. Two main explanations for group polarization are the role of persuasive arguments and social comparison, which are people who want to look favorably in the eyes of their peers. Group Polarization exists in the present day society as well.