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Polarization in the world is increasing; is 40% more in Latin America and a 2.2% in the US.
Latin America grew by 11% the month the pandemic was declared and did not stop growing at an annual rate of 8%.
Freedom of expression is one of the issues that worries and occupies Mexicans the most, so much so that it also becomes, many times thanks to digitalization, the banner of social polarization.
We are talking about a phenomenon studied by sociology for decades and that is characterized by the extreme division between cultural, political and social wars typical of two or more completely opposite positions, where the conversion of attitudes and opinions make difficult a reconciliation in the dynamics and, even respect.
We find polarized societies, above all, in places where there have been important movements that generate radical positions on political and social issues and where, clearly, a rupture between opinion groups and opposing mentalities can be felt.
Understanding this, lLLYC reveals in “The Hidden Drug. A study on the addictive power of the polarization of public debate”, that Mexico is one of the countries that does not go unnoticed on issues of polarization and are precisely those related to freedom of expression, human rights, racism, abortion and feminism those who are growing the physical conversation and in social networks in a very evident way.
According to the consultant’s report, in the last five years It is where the social division and the increase in debates and discussions have been most reflectedsomething that can be answered -as the same conceptual definition explains it- by the political, regime, legal and citizen movements that have emerged with the change of government in the country, in 2018.
However, despite these examples, Mexico is a less polarized country than the United States, Brazil or Spain and reports a better consensus on issues of feminism and climate change than other Ibero-American areas. Likewise, only abortion and minimum wage show a polarization and level of engagement greater than the global average.
The state laws approved for the legalization of abortion make it one of the most polar issues in the region, with a growth of 76 percent; death penalty and minimum wage are the issues that are decreasing.
“We live in a society addicted to conflict, an addiction that is enhanced by the use of social networks that help reinforce our own opinions and prejudices, distancing us from the general consensus. Beyond the data, which is very revealing, the main value of The Hidden Drug is to invite us all to reflect and find spaces for dialogue.logo and reconciliation with others”, says David González Natal, partner and general director of the Northern Region of LLYC.
“We are launching this global campaign because we are very concerned about the normalization of this phenomenon. Our purpose as a company is to build trust between people, institutions, companies and brands, and polarization has the opposite effect. This polarization prevents finding consensus and meeting points between people. That is why we have the responsibility to create those spaces for conciliation, relaxation and pause to find a way out of this situation”, adds José Antonio Llorente, Founding Partner and President of LLYC.
Polarization grows in Latin America
The LLYC report It was carried out using Big Data and Artificial Intelligence techniques and analyzing the conversation of the last five years in Latin America and the United States, that is, processing more than 600 million messages on social networks between September 1, 2017 to August 31, 2022.
Among the results obtained, it was found that, with the arrival of the pandemic, the level of involvement or engagement in polarizing conversations grew exponentially, demonstrated with data from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, the United States, Spain, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Portugal, and the Dominican Republic.
“It is difficult to measure the exact risk of an addiction; in some cases it is well known, but in others, such as polarization, it is not. The great human tragedies and massacres result from moments of misunderstanding, from the exacerbation of this mechanism by which one group cannot understand the ideas of the other. That not understanding makes him hate him to such an extent that he decides that the only way to solve it is to kill them all in a war. This may be the true risk of a drug like polarization”, explains Mariano Sigman, neuroscientist and author of “El poder de las palabras”.
And it is that polarization is translated as a drug thinking about the level of debate and fight that exists today in social networks such as Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, where certain cases are reached in which the discussion becomes “a drug hidden behind the apparent normality of the use of these digital platforms”.
For experts like him neuroscientist Mariano Sigman; Patricia Fernández, clinical psychologist at the Ramón y Cajal Hospital; and Belén Carrasco, senior researcher and deputy director of Eyes on Russia, Center for Information Resilience, this addiction to networks, and especially to polarizing content, generates, both in people and in society, symptoms similar to those of a drug type c Symptoms that can be loss of control, absorption at the mental level or serious alteration of the person’s daily functioning.
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