This is Hidden Brain. I'm Shankar Vedantam.

Imagine you had a dispute with a neighbor.

It could be something trivial. Maybe he's playing music too loudly late at night

and your kids can't get to sleep. The way we usually resolve these problems in daily life

is to knock on our neighbor's door,

explain the problem,

and try to find an amicable solution.

If all goes well, you discover that you have similar tastes and music.

You swap playlists while getting him to keep the volume down at night.

Maybe you take over soup when he's unwell,

and he helps you on a cold morning

when your car needs a jump.

Now imagine that this dispute takes place on a platform like X, formerly Twitter.

Instead of talking to your neighbor, you throw open your window and tell all the people on your side of the street that your neighbor is a jerk.

Upset and offended, he throws open his window, which opens onto a different set of neighbors, and tells those people that you're crazy.

Soon you're yelling at each other but really talking to completely different sets of people.

Every escalation is met with reprisal.

Each of you is certain the other must be dimwitted, malevolent, or unhinged.

On social media, especially when it comes to political disagreements, this is often what

passes for discourse.

Platforms like Twitter have called these shouting matches engagement, but common sense suggests

they are really a prescription for disengagement.

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