Written By: BOSS Editorial
Reading Time: 5 minutes
Back in the old days of Web 1.0, everyone browsing a webpage saw the same thing. Sure, there was backend stuff that only admins had access to, but if you were a user, your version of a website was the same as everyone else’s.
Then came social media, and with it, algorithms. Those algorithms personalized everything. Your version of a social media site was different from anybody else’s. At the outset, that was because you would be connected with different people who were posting different things. Your feed might have been chronological, but it was unique because only you had that exact combination of friends or people you followed. Quickly, social media companies began using algorithms to prioritize content they thought would get the most engagement. That could be based on your indicated preferences or on something that was likely to popular in your demographic.
Whatever it was, it was designed to keep you on that site for as long as possible. It worked. Figures vary based on age and country, but on average users spend about 2.5 hours per day on social media. A personalized algorithm is one thing when it helps you discover music you might like. It’s entirely different when it’s your primary source of news, as it is for about 20% of American adults.
Can We Talk?
Back when people looking for news in a particular area went to the local newspaper, or one of a few TV or radio stations, everybody more or less got the same news. They might have had different opinions about that news, but they all got more or less the same headlines and stories. Now there are infinite sources of news. Some are more accurate than others, and we basically pick and choose what we like or that is all we see because it’s what an algorithm serves us based on what it predicts we’ll engage with. Influencers and politicians recognize this, down to portraying different personalities on different social media platforms. The person they are on Facebook, and the things they talk about, aren’t the same as what they say on X. Both can diverge wildly from how they act in person. They’re counting on the information environment being so fractured that they can reach different audiences on different platforms without many people noticing the contradictions.
The end result is that we don’t really live in a shared reality anymore. Not only are there more disagreements when we try to talk to each other, it’s hard to even have a conversation when we don’t start from a shared set of facts we can agree on. It’s hard to talk to someone when they bring up “facts” you’re hearing for the first time, and it’s hard to change your mind on a topic when everything the algorithm serves you reinforces your conclusion. No matter how smart someone is, if something is presented as fact to them enough times, they’ll start to believe it. It’s had and continues to have a profound effect on shaping the world we live in.
Surveys shows Americans spend more time at home and have fewer close friends than they did just two or three decades ago. It’s not a wild leap to conclude that the time we’re spending online used to be spent hanging out with people in person. In most close friendships, people can disagree about a wide range of topics and still get along. But that’s not really how things work online. The mentality is more tribal, us vs. them, with little to no more for nuance. It’s easier to dismiss someone and what they’re saying when they’re just a character in your phone, not a fleshed-out human being right in front of you.
Common Set of Facts
So what can we do about this? How can we restore a sense of shared reality? The American Psychological Association has some recommendations for combatting misinformation, including repeating it as little as possible and only in conjunction with a quick correction. Psychologist Gordon Pennycock and cognitive scientist David Rand have recommended “nudges” that require social media users to confirm they want to share something before they do, giving them a second to think about things before impulsively passing along information they haven’t verified.
Meta has introduced forwarding limits on WhatsApp and Messenger in an effort to slow the spread of viral misinformation on messaging platforms. LinkedIn, Instagram, and Bluesky have employed features that encourage users to rethink the language in their posts, aiming to maintain some level of civility in discussions rather than having them devolve into an exchange of expletives and name-calling.
Fact-checking systems are an absolute must for establishing a shared reality. Twitter and X as it’s now known have seen success with Community Notes (originally Birdwatch) that allows users to suggest corrections or add more context to posts and crowdsource approval on the notes. TikTok launched a similar system in 2025. Meta previously employed third-party fact-checkers but it 2025 made the switch to a crowdsourced Community Notes-style system in the U.S. while still using fact-checkers in the UK and EU, which in 2022 adopted the Digital Services Act to regulate social media. YouTube’s context panels include information from verified sources such as Encyclopedia Brittanica and Wikipedia alongside videos with history or science content. Other panels tell users how news sources are funded, which can indicate potential biases.
Komyūn, a new platform, promises to “free your feed” with a “social platform built for community, not clicks.” There are no ads, and the platform’s home page promises it isn’t trying to get users addicted or use baby photos for an AI model.
“We need new systems — ones that prioritize civic coherence, community trust, and the restoration of a shared informational foundation,” co-founder and CEO Lauren Sato wrote on LinkedIn.
For better or worse, social media is where we gather now, and we need a shared reality there. The more we can agree on what’s happening, the better conversations we can have about it.
