How to Recognize and Repair the Political Divide

There’s a phenomenon that’s occurring at significantly higher rates over the past ten years in regards to the world’s largest social media platform, Facebook. It’s called the “unfriend.”

You know about the unfriend, right?

Well, this happened because two people disagree about something (usually politics or religion), and because of that disagreement, they declare, it’s no longer worth my time or energy to acknowledge you exist. And we cut them out of our digital lives. It’s very easy to do and seems to relieve some of the pressure.

The problem is that if we cut people out of our lives when they disagree with us, our circle of influence becomes so small that we only end up surrounded by people who know what we know and think like we think.

Now, as it turns out, the only things in life we can learn are things we don’t yet know.

Eric M. Bailey