As someone who believes in both conservative and liberal ideals, it is very hard if not impossible to voice my opinions. People like me who hold very middle ground beliefs are being constantly drowned out by the crossfire between the extreme right and left-leaning ideals. Not only that but it's incredibly rare to have a political conversation today without someone either becoming offended or simply ignoring my opinion. And this is a huge problem because if I can't have a conversation with someone who has a different political opinion nothing will ever get done. Over the past few weeks while I chip away at this article I think I stumbled onto the root of this problem, and it's the way we consume information in today’s world.

So let me give you a brief summary of how the internet works. The internet is a business and as a result, websites want to keep you on their website so they can make more money. In order to keep you on the website, an algorithm keeps recommending things to you that are similar to what you're looking at. For example, say you’re on YouTube and are watching cute cat videos, YouTube will keep recommending more cat videos so that you stay on the website. Because if YouTube recommended dog videos you might go back to doing your school work or go to another website and watch cat videos there. So how does this polarize people? Well, the algorithm that recommends videos is smart enough to recommend videos that align with your political beliefs. Going back to the YouTube example if you watch a bunch of conspiracy videos because of the algorithm, you might believe that the conspiracy is true. In short, the internet feeds you like content, and as a result, you become even more entrenched in your beliefs.

Not only does the internet do a good job connecting people, it does one hell of a job connecting people with the same opinions. Which leads to something called group polarization. Group polarization is when a group of like-minded people sit down and talk they believe something more radical than what they started out believing. For example, I'm hanging out with a group of my friends and we talk about how the Buffalo Bills are going to have a better season this year, after an hour of talking about this my friends and I think the Bills are going to win the Superbowl. The same thing happens in politics with the internet bringing people together.

About three weeks ago I watched a TED talk where a black guy became friends with a KKK Klansman because he was curious why that man believed what he believed and as a result, he eventually convinced the KKK member to leave the Klan. The whole point of the speech was that you should sit down with someone who disagrees with you and just hear them out. And I couldn't agree more. Months back I had a conversation with a random person that I haven't met in real life, on Instagram and we had the most polite discussion about politics. And I ended up understanding where that person was coming from. I still disagreed with them on that topic but I understood why they thought that. And I think that is something we all need to do, sit down and have a discussion with someone you disagree with, it's so much more productive than digging into our trenches of what we know best. The only thing I ask that you take away from my ramblings is that you should just sit down with someone you politically disagree with and just talk.