Cass Sunstein astutely comments in the Financial Times on how many people use the Internet to construct a “Daily Me” — “information cocoons” or “echo chambers” that bombard them with material that confirms the views they already hold. He cites a 2005 study of groups composed of either left-wing or right-wing members, which concluded:

  • In almost every group, people ended up with more extreme positions.
  • Aside from increasing extremism, discussion had another effect: it squelched diversity.
  • When people find their views corroborated, they become more confident and so are more willing to be extreme.
  • People who favour a position think of themselves in a certain way and if they are with people who agree with them, they shift a bit to hold on to their preferred self-conception.
  • The internet is thus a powerful tool for intensifying group polarisation, with important ramifications for the electoral process. The “self-sorting” that it so greatly facilitates results in “more confidence, extremism and increased contempt for those with contrary views.”

It is plausible that the Internet contributes to an especially intense level of self-sorting among campus denizens, who have constant access to high-speed online service. But, then, such self-sorting is also greatly advanced by corrupt faculty hiring and student organizational practices — and hence the thriving of departmental and student-organizational “information cocoons,” radicalism, and intolerance of opposite opinions.