The current paper explains how modern technology interacts with human psychology to create a funhouse mirror version of social norms. We argue that norms generated on social media often tend to be more extreme than offline norms which can create false perceptions of norms–known as pluralistic ignorance. We integrate research from political science, psychology, and cognitive science to explain how online environments become saturated with false norms, who is misrepresented online, what happens when online norms deviate from offline norms, where people are affected online, and why expressions are more extreme online. We provide a framework for understanding and correcting for the distortions in our perceptions of social norms that are created by social media platforms. We argue the funhouse mirror nature of social media can be pernicious for individuals and society by increasing pluralistic ignorance and false polarization.

中文翻译：

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走进游乐场镜子工厂：社交媒体如何扭曲对规范的看法


目前的论文解释了现代技术如何与人类心理学相互作用，以创建社会规范的 funhouse 镜像版本。我们认为，社交媒体上产生的规范往往比线下规范更极端，后者可能会造成对规范的错误认知——被称为多元无知。我们整合了政治学、心理学和认知科学的研究，以解释在线环境如何被错误规范所饱和，谁在网上被歪曲，当在线规范偏离线下规范时会发生什么，人们在哪些方面受到在线影响，以及为什么在线表达更加极端。我们提供了一个框架，用于理解和纠正我们对社交媒体平台造成的社会规范认知的扭曲。我们认为，社交媒体的娱乐镜子性质可能会增加多元化的无知和错误的两极分化，从而对个人和社会有害。