President Trump has been on an all-too-familiar social media rampage this past week. One post made by the president utilized AI imaging to imply his desire to acquire Greenland, showcasing penguins (an animal not native to the territory) marching with American flags. Another labeled Christopher Cooper — the man who ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center — a “Radical Left Judge” and referred to his wife as a “Trump-hating lawyer.” Although the sentiment in these statements is nothing new, they raise the question of what we are accepting in our political climate today. As social media drives polarizing content to the forefront, the constant exposure to controversy and outrage can leave voters emotionally exhausted and disengaged from informed, meaningful democratic participation.
Social media algorithms track what users are interested in and suggest content based on their past behavior. They also push the most-liked, most-engaging content, which disproportionately consists of clips and opinions designed to elicit an emotional reaction. Consequently, posts that frame political opponents as enemies rise to the top, which can threaten the foundation of our democracy: critical thought and meaningful discussion. This is especially concerning for Americans under 30, 76 percent of whom say they get news from social media at least sometimes.
Repeated exposure to emotionally charged content also feeds outrage fatigue and information overload, causing users to withdraw from political action. Outrage fatigue occurs when you are first exposed to distressing content. It can provoke a feeling of unfairness or injustice, but after repeated exposure, these negative emotions start to fade. Part of the problem is the constant stream of content social media delivers, which adds to stress. Some studies conducted during the pandemic, a time when terms like “doomscrolling” began to emerge, found that users who received their news from social media were more likely to experience emotional distress. This was said to be due to the strategies used by algorithms that coax users into watching and engaging with content, which, in turn, promotes it to wider audiences. Furthermore, when we are exposed to constant crises and political infighting, with no immediate solution, our brains have a limited ability to process these events with the same level of outrage — it is simply unmanageable.
The idea of outrage fatigue has also been harnessed by foreign states who have utilized social media’s engagement-based algorithms to promote their agendas. A prime example is Russia, whose regime has repeatedly been called out for its use of social media to sway public opinion. Countless reports have been published accusing Russia of flooding social media with propaganda, including deepfakes and false news websites, to influence the 2024 elections. Furthermore, in 2024, the Justice Department alleged that RT, Russia’s state media network, had secretly funneled nearly $10 million to Tenet Media, a company that paid right-wing influencers to post videos amplifying U.S. domestic divisions. With only 15 percent of adults under 30 saying they follow traditional news sources all or most of the time, there is a danger that opinions on domestic and foreign policy are being shaped by misinformation and propaganda. Russia has also fed contradictory takes and content to social media users, which can cause confusion about the original issue overall. People can begin to detach from the issue at hand, or fail to further seek out factual sources if they are being fed with a steady stream of false information.
There are arguments to be made that outrage can drive meaningful discussion and action, and that social media should stimulate political action because of the sheer abundance of information received. One example of this can be highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement, which experienced a significant wave of online support after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in 2020. Despite Back Lives Matter being a known movement since 2013, half of the 44 million hashtags it received were posted between May and September 2020. Even though this was a major advancement, the online support was essentially contained to Democrat voters. Countermovements on social media like All Lives Matter pulled the topic of conversation away from the root of the issue and diluted the problem to a left-versus-right issue.
With all of this in mind, Trump’s posts implying a U.S. takeover of Greenland and his inflammatory remarks about a sitting judge and his wife risk becoming just another headline that fades as they compete with other controversies. Comments that should provoke anger among voters fail to maintain their attention because numerous other stories and contentious opinions are already competing for it. Furthermore, even if they do evoke outrage in the public sphere, that doesn’t automatically translate into concrete change. The outrage and need for accountability will lose their grip on the American attention span as more controversies flood in. If controversy is the norm now, and routine political scandals are part of daily life, how are we as voters expected to hold our leadership accountable and participate purposefully in politics? The change needed to drive meaningful participation is in dire need of collective action, whether that be a purposeful movement back to fact-based news, routine interaction with people from the opposite political spectrum, or accountability from social media platforms.
The Zeitgeist aims to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented are solely those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board.
