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One of the great things about social media is that it allows us to share thoughts and engage in discussions with friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers about a wide range of issues. However, it turns out that when people feel they have an opinion that's not widely shared, they tend to remain silent in public discussions. This is known as the "spiral of silence".
A recent study from Pew [1] shows this reticence carries into the social media space, as well. They interviewed close to 2,000 people about their discussions related to the Edward Snowden surveillance revelations. The US population was split quite evenly in their opinions on the case.
The researchers saw the spiral of silence in action; the people surveyed said they were more willing to discuss their views if they thought their "audience" shared their views both online and offline.
While most (86%) were willing to have an in-person conversation about the topic, only 42% were willing to say something about it on Facebook or Twitter. Among the people who were unwilling to discuss the issue in person, essentially none – only 0.3%, or 6 people – said they would post about it on social media.
There are good reasons that people might be more reluctant to share their potentially controversial views online. First, sites like Facebook and Twitter lead to asynchronous conversations. For complex issues, a conversation may benefit from a real time back and forth discussion. Without interaction at that speed, misunderstandings can escalate before a person can respond. Many of the non-verbal cues and give-and-take that can mediate offline conversations are missing from online conversations, too.
So while is it unfortunate that public discourse may suffer because people are unwilling to discuss some controversial issues online, the technology will need to support these conversations better before things change.
[1] Hampton, Keith, Lee Rainie, Weixu Lu, Maria Dwyer, Inyoung Shin, and Kristen Purcell. "Social Media and the ‘Spiral of Silence’." (2014). http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-of-si…
