Social Media Is Making Us Evil

It is corrosive to the soul

There are many concerns that a person might have about social media. It seems to be making us pointlessly miserable, frittering away our valuable time, and eviscerating social connection. But there is another ill-discussed effect it is having on us. It is corroding our souls, making us callous and cold-hearted and cruel.

One of the chief human instincts that causes us to behave badly is tribalism. When we choose a side, it is very easy to tolerate bad conduct towards those on the other side, and to excuse wickedness from those on our own side. Specifically, the less we see those on the other side as people, and the more we see them as a homogenous mass of devils, the likelier we are to excuse cruelty towards them.

Social media—and Twitter, in particular—encourages us to pass judgment on others very quickly. One often likes a Tweet just a few seconds after reading it. For this reason, the Tweets that do well are not those that appeal to our higher faculties. It is rare that a Tweet goes viral for being particularly prescient or insightful. Rather, they tend to go viral for tapping into our most base tribalistic impulses.

This has a corrosive effect on both the poster and the person evaluating the post. The poster is rewarded for behaving more like an animal, neglecting reason, decency, and any kind of higher ideals. The person evaluating the post is flooded with one sentence remarks that are selected for triggering a tribalistic outburst.

This effect compounds over time. In the beginning, we only like the posts that we really agree with. Then we begin liking posts that take clever shots at the other side, even if they are slightly unfair. Then we begin liking posts that spike the other side, in any manner, no matter how unfair. In the end, we forfeit our humanity. We become pawns of base tribalism. Our higher faculties are abandoned. We are like Pavlov’s dogs, conditioned to snarl whenever the other side rings their bell and salivate whenever provided with red meat.

On social media, one is rewarded for being “based.” Being based is not about being wise or prudent, but instead about making remarks that sound outlandish but support your side. It is “based” to say that women shouldn’t drive. This is not because it is wise or true—being based isn’t about that. It’s instead about combining outlandishness with a thin veneer of defensibility.

Now, there are some “based” things I believe. I think our crimes against animals are orders of magnitude worse than our crimes against fellow human beings. That is an outrageous-sounding statement. But being based should be a means towards an end, where the end is saying what is true. On social media, it is the opposite—truth is subordinated to being based, rather than basedness subordinated to saying what is true. As a result, pointless callousness and cruelty is rewarded.

I saw a recent Tweet that I thought nicely encapsulated the deleterious effect that social media often has on our souls.

Now, what is most noxious about this Tweet isn’t the factual errors (ignoring how difficult it is for an illegal immigrant to get amnesty and assuming without evidence that she’s a liberal, just for ragebait). The casual cruelty and callousness is typical on social media, but would be bizarre in normal life. If you came across this woman crying on the street, after her mother was deported, presumably you would not say to her face “goodbye,” and then follow it up with two emojis to show that you find the whole affair funny.

Tweets like this are an effect of spending too much time on social media. First, one supports right-wing policies because they believe them to be good. Then, the good and the right-wing become inextricably linked in their mind, so that anything which signals right-wing political affiliation is given positive affect. Pretty soon, one reaches the level that they are cackling gleefully at women crying because their mothers are deported. That which is right-wing becomes, in their mind, the platonic form of the good. By definition, then, they have no enemies to their right.

I do not mean to suggest this only happens on the right. It is certainly bipartisan. The phenomenon is also behind lots of people cackling about Charlie Kirk’s death, without even a modicum of sympathy for him or his family. When one sees the good as identical with their side of the political spectrum, rather than politics as a means to the good, all manner of indignity is excused. As C.S. Lewis once said:

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

I was disturbed the first time I read this passage, because I saw the error clearly in myself. There have been times I wished gray was just a bit blacker, so it would help me score political points. There have been times when preparing for debates about politics when I wished my opponents were worse, so that the case against them was stronger and my side could be vindicated. It is easy to see the devil in others. It is disturbing to see him standing on one’s own shoulder.

“Fixed forever in a universe of pure hatred,” is a pretty good way of describing the online fringe on both the left and the right. Reading, for instance, about the pathological fixation that many on Bluesky have with calling for the death of Jesse Singal, it is clear that Lewis nailed the phenomenon. If our god is politics, and the good is secondary, then we will become bitter and wicked and hateful and resentful. Followed to the end, this will make us into devils.

It is one thing to support deportations despite recognizing the personal tragedy they inflict on families. That is not a position I agree with, but my aim in this article is not to discuss immigration. Where one loses one’s soul is in claiming that the tears of a woman whose mother is deported aren’t tragic at all, but instead something to be laughed at, something to revel in. If politics has made you indifferent to tragedy, so long as it has the right political valence, then you should take a long hard look in the mirror.

There is a solution to this: simply refrain from being pointlessly cruel. Avoid those on social media who are indifferent to terrible things happening. We should think of our primary commitment as being to the good, and politics as secondary. If we do not do this, we will gradually slide from wishing for white to gray to black, until we long for nothing but darkness—until spite is our god, and we are locked into a universe of pure hatred.