I’m a student in Chicago, at a magnet high school ranked among the best in the United States. As a school with a strong intellectual focus, one of our core values is “curiosity” in the pursuit of knowledge. Inside the classroom, we try to live this out by engaging in vigorous discussions in search of the truth. 

Online, however, high school students fall into the same groupthink that is all too common on social media. Part of this is due to high school social dynamics: as teenagers, we want to fit in, or at least not be ostracized by our classmates. High school is remarkably conducive to groupthink, because virtually every teenager would rather fly below the radar than risk fraying friendships over ideological disagreements. 

But another, even bigger part of the problem is the one-sided way that opinions are transmitted through social media. Teenagers follow content creators whose posts validate their views. Students then share these posts with their own social media followers, who repost that content to their own stories, and the cycle continues. Nowhere along the way are students confronted with ideas that challenge their own.

Around a year ago, in the wake of global protests against police brutality, it seemed like almost every story on my Instagram feed was from students in support of defunding the police. Many made the case that police were not needed in our society at all. Others argued that policing’s purpose was to uphold systemic inequalities rather than prevent crime. It was rare to see anyone my age publicly pushing back against these narratives, even though there were obvious questions about how a society would function without police. Judging by their stories, it appeared that almost everyone my age agreed that reducing or abolishing the police would make the country safer and more just.

The police were defunded in some places, but the results seem to prove why we need more debate and less groupthink. In Los Angeles, the police department budget was cut by $150 million in July 2020, yet amidst a large increase in violent crime, the budget is now being increased by an even larger amount. Similar stories have played out in San Francisco and other cities. While the causes behind these increases in crime are varied, it is clear now that defunding the police did not create a more peaceful world; arguably, it helped create other significant problems.

Defund the police is not the only example of social media groupthink. A similar cycle of content creators sharing stories and posts within their own idea bubbles also occurs with other issues. An example is vaccine skepticism, which has led to lower inoculation rates in Republican counties and more deaths from COVID. We also saw how inaccurate, one-sided information regarding the allegedly “stolen” presidential election led to a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. 

But there is a solution to this problem, which can be found in how social media companies deal with COVID misinformation. When it comes to COVID, social media posts deemed false or misleading are flagged and given a link to provide the user with trustworthy information about the virus from an organization like the CDC or the WHO. According to a January 2021 study, this approach generates an increase in positive attitudes toward the vaccine among those who view the flagged posts. Providing an easy option for people to learn more seems to make them better informed.

The solution to the echo chambers created by our current social media system might be similar. If a user shares a story or makes a post regarding a hot button, heavily debated issue, a link should be provided at the bottom (with a title such as “See other viewpoints here”) to give the viewer multiple opinions on the topic. Posts warranting a link could be identified by keywords, such as “microchip” or “election fraud” or “defund”. The link would send the user to a page with links to articles covering various views of the issue. For example, a post about defunding the police would have articles discussing the movement’s positive achievements, and others discussing its drawbacks. 

Providing users with this option could curb the self-reinforcing conversations that occur amongst high schoolers on social media, and allow opinions from more perspectives to be heard. Even if students did not click on the link to get more information, the simple act of providing it would prime them to understand that there are other viewpoints out there. Doing so could begin to chip away at the echo chambers of social media by making its users better informed.