Groupthink on a massive scale.
I think they call themselves “dittoheads”.
the Internet is also the primary driver behind hyper-partisanship, has coarsened the culture, helped to mainstream perverse sexual content, widely spread paranoia and rumors, shortened attention spans, and helped eat away the shared culture that has helped to anchor Americans.
I would argue that talk radio also played a role in driving hyper-partisanship. As far as a coarsening of culture, I think the Internet deserves much less blame than Commercial TV, which has been working hard at this for decades.
I’m not sure what you consider to be “perverse sexual content”, but probably most of it is quite tame by any reasonable standard. Likewise Commercial TV has played a large role in shortening attention spans and reducing the shared culture to ‘American Idol’.
Paranoia and rumors have always been around – it is just easier to find them on the internet. The flipside is that it is also easier to debunk them.
Peace.
DS
