[bicubic]

For the most part, social media doesn't change people's opinions or beliefs. The beat of individual metronomes is not changed, instead social media acts as a filter that only lets through the loudest views, where loudness is a function of how many people hold a given view, and how strongly they feel about it.

The people that don't share those views? They continue not sharing them and get increasingly frustrated by social media platforms drowning them out.

This is a key aspect of the widening political left/right divide. Every meaningful topic is divided into two opposing categories, and then the people who hold the less loud view are drowned out. Voat.co was created when moderate/right leaning abandoned reddit. Now it's a bastion of the alt-right.

[mercer]

I wish I shared your optimism about the 'fence-sitters'. Unfortunately I've seen first hand how people in my surroundings ended up essentially parroting those 'loud' views and radicalizing before my eyes (in various ways).

It's true that this isn't the case for everyone, but unfortunately the loud voices often have a disproportionate effect on reality.

[cirgue]

> For the most part, social media doesn't change people's opinions or beliefs.

Maybe not, but it certainly does influence which beliefs people choose to talk about. It also influences the range of beliefs people think it is possible to hold, which I think does influence people's beliefs and opinions over the long term.