Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

Posted by geox 10/27/2025

Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization(phys.org)

216 points | 231 commentspage 3

thefz 10/27/2025|

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

Thanks to David Wong for explaining this in JDATE, calling it the Babel threshold.

VWWHFSfQ 10/27/2025||

You can have 10 "friends". 3 close ones. Anything larger than that and you are way out of your depth and can't possibly maintain those relationships in a meaningful, personal way.

HPsquared 10/27/2025|

Definitely. Close relationships of any kind involve a lot of investment and "costly signals".

Huxley1 10/28/2025||

I've had a similar experience. The bigger my social circle gets and the more people I follow, the easier it is to end up surrounded by a single perspective, especially on work-related topics. At first, I thought I was broadening my view, but it turned out I was just reinforcing my existing preferences. Do you make a point of keeping people with different opinions in your network, or do you find it more comfortable to stay in circles where everyone thinks alike?

naikrovek 10/28/2025||

> Study finds growing social circles may fuel polarization

Anyone who has ever been to public school knows this in their bones.

xchip 10/28/2025||

> Study finds growing social circles **may** fuel polarization

Note that this study MAY not be accurate

dooglius 10/27/2025||

Links are "DOI NOT FOUND". Article does not seem to suggest that the study actual found any relationship between the increase in the two things, just that they both happened around the same time.

smallerize 10/27/2025||

Unfortunately, even for the most fast-moving journals, that time is typically several hours before the actual articles appear on the journal’s website. So, anyone who’s reading quickly is likely to find that the DOI fails.

But that rule only applies to the fast-moving journals, like Nature and Science. Many other journals can take a few days between when they allow journalists to write about a paper and when it becomes available to the scientific community—PNAS, which is a major source of material for us, falls in that category.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2010/03/dois-and-their-disco...

unglaublich 10/27/2025||

The common demoninator is the rise of social media networks.

brador 10/28/2025||

Self reported through a questionnaire. Pass.

morshu9001 10/28/2025||

See ncase.me "the wisdom of crowds"

stevage 10/27/2025|

> When people are more connected with each other, they encounter different opinions more frequently. This inevitably leads to more conflict and thus greater societal polarization

If this is true, it is counterintuitive, and runs against the prevailing narrative that living within your bubble and not interacting with opposing viewpoints is what causes polarisation. I thought cities were supposed to be less polarised because people can't help encountering other viewpoints.

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