[bradlys]

Does it matter the quality of the connection? The argument is about being shown different viewpoints and that the internet shows you more than in person.

Is that hard to disagree with? I didn’t even know atheism was a thing until I was on the Internet. No one in my community was an atheist and the media we were provided didn’t reference it much.

[_tulpa]

I think quality is almost the only thing that matters.

Personal anecdotes aside, we're mostly terrible at dealing with new ideas when they conflict with stuff we already know or is close to our identity. Remove the human element of the connection and we're even more likely to dismiss said conflicting ideas outright as stupid (I'll try link to that research). It's not hard to imagine how that might lead to strong yet poorly justified social division.