The BPR High School Program invites student writers to research, draft, and edit a college-level opinion article over the course of a semester. Mia Medeiros is a senior at Paul Cuffee Upper School in Providence, RI.
While sitting at the table for Thanksgiving dinner, your aunt begins talking about a Facebook post she saw claiming the government controls the weather. Then, your cousin says someone on TikTok debunked that claim. A heated argument breaks out, with back-and-forths about Facebook spreading misinformation and TikTok being run by the “radical left,” who are specifically trying to take down Republicans. From sparking arguments at the table to unfriending family and friends online, political polarization does not only affect the party in office or what bills get passed, but our relationships with the people we are supposed to love most—our families. When these familial relationships are frayed, we project the hurt and anger onto other interpersonal relationships in our lives, making it difficult to sustain proper, healthy connections with new people we meet. As our relationships with family become strained, these pillars of our social lives crumble, and the broader fabric of society becomes unraveled.
Younger individuals tend to be more liberal, while older people tend to lean conservative. In addition, people increasingly identify with more extreme political ideologies, whether they be more conservative, liberal, or anywhere in between. The combination of these two factors results in clashes between younger and older folk. In many cases, these disagreements translate to more intense arguments than ever before. The severity of this hostility can be attributed to the increased use of various social media platforms and websites. Younger generations typically use platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where content tends to lean liberal, while older people tend to use platforms like Facebook or Truth Social, where content generally leans conservative. In other words, different age groups are exposed to information that conforms to their specific political ideology.
This difference in media consumption is compounded by the fact that each generation alive today is slightly more Democrat-leaning than its predecessor, showing how prevalent generational divides due to political affiliation are nowadays. The divide between generations—which can apply to divisions between parents and children, grandparents, and grandchildren, or any other familial permutation—is heightened by the quantity of social media platforms and websites that confirm our political biases, whether they are correct or not. People can post anything, and can thus find the most niche posts, threads, or communities that confirm their beliefs, no matter how outlandish they may be. This can cause an increase in extreme perspectives on all sides, where the limits of what a Democrat, Republican, or anything in between are pushed farther out with each new radical theory or idea. Given this information environment, it is unsurprising we see increasing division between political groups.
The intergenerational divide is heightened by rising anger and hatred from one party toward another. No longer are people willing to debate civilly or agree to disagree—opinions automatically become right or wrong. As a result, Americans are becoming more hostile towards members of the opposing party, considering them morally inferior to themselves. NPR found, for example, that people are willing to disown friends, attack and call them a “libtard,” or a “Nazi” for their political beliefs. Broader surges in negativity and hatred, specifically from one party toward another, can lead to more disagreements between—and dislike of—family members, leading to unfollowing, blocking, or entirely cutting off any connection with that person. When people choose to be hostile instead of open and willing to participate in healthy conversation, disagreements fester, perpetuating a cycle of hostility.
Two in five Americans have argued with a family member over political issues, with one in five Americans disconnecting from family members—physically or over social media—because of political disagreements. Such arguments can lead to a decline in well-being and cause emotional distress for all family members involved. Despite the fact that these arguments cause distress, people continue to engage in political spaces online that reaffirm their beliefs. As polarization is intensified by more frequent social media use, our relationships with our family members are the first to suffer. Families are the perfect social groups to be affected by these differences: they are made up of different generations of people who are usually pretty close to each other and spend time in conversation. And there is little concern of maintaining decorum as if discussions were a formal debate. It’s the perfect breeding ground for heated political conversations. Large quantities of content confirming people’s biases on social media only intensifies these differences. As a result, families get broken apart. Although relationships are not necessarily severed more often in families than they are in any other group, the effects of such fractures are more destructive. Our families are normally the main pillars in our lives, providing us stability when we need it most. Instead, polarization physically breaks these bonds and ruins our relationships with those we should love most.
People continue to push their narratives and opinions as facts, when in reality, beliefs are neither truly right or wrong. People can have biases and still be correct. Just because someone identifies with the far left or far right, they are not automatically wrong about everything they say or believe. We just have to be aware of potential biases and take them into account when having a conversation. Like everyone else, our biases can cloud our perception of the world and influence our perspective on the issues at hand. In every situation involving politics then, we just have to be okay with the possibility of being wrong.
In today’s political climate, conversations can get heated—and they often do. But hatred is not the way forward. We should be able to recognize where someone is coming from and respect their position without automatically assuming they’re a bad person. If we just took the time to have civil conversations before jumping to conclusions, we would have an easier time resolving our differences. Ultimately, it’s okay to disagree. Being open-minded and not jumping to conclusions is far more productive, both for our families and for society.