My ultra catholic relatives have become more extreme in their views. The opinions of my left and right leaning friends have become more extreme. The outgoing party animal types seem to want to post more and more about how much they party. The people who sometimes feel down post more and more about how awful it is and how much help they need.
I know it is all down to how facebook has us all figured out and shows us stuff that only reinforces previously held beliefs and opinions.
The problem is that is seems to have also created a strange desire among many reasonable people to unwittingly troll others. For example people who used to rarely talk about politics will post provocative things that seem designed to elicit negative responses. I have Catholic in-law relatives that have I met only only once at my wedding posting on my timeline demanding I promise to not vote to repeal the 8th in the forthcoming Irish abortion referendum. My polite refusal to give an answer only angers them, yet somehow I am at fault.
Those who only see stuff about what they already believed will only believe in it stronger. And what do you do when you really believe in something? You try to spread your belief, which social media makes it easy to do. But of course in doing so you will potentially anger or annoy other who might have listened to your message if it wasn't so in-your-face.
The problem is that this spills over in to the real world. Religious people may avoid interacting with someone because they said something trivial on facebook they didn't like. Come election time people will be less willing to switch political parties because someone who supports a different party said something rude.
Even without the political meddling, targeted advertising and profiling, social media lacks the context and nuance of the real world. Something that in itself only serves to negatively reinforce opinions.