Psychology of Media & Technology

All people instinctively seek certainty and stability to offset the fear of chaos and change. This increases tribalism and ‘othering,’ as people seek to make their worlds feel more stable and controllable. Media provides a means of identifying tribes and groups and these tendencies have deep evolutionary roots. The problem won’t be trolls and general troublemakers – these have always been a minority. The problem is the tendency of the cacophony of negative media voices to increase the social schisms contributing to the rising anger over a world undergoing massive shifts.