[AnimalMuppet]

Social media also enrages at a much deeper level.

Say a newspaper printed something. You read it. You got angry. You wrote a letter to the editor and mailed it. Maybe a week later, they printed your letter. A few days later, someone you know saw your letter and commented to you that they thought you were right.

You see something on Facebook. You got angry. You wrote something in reply (perhaps with less thought than the letter to the editor, because it wasn't a once-every-few-years event). Five minutes later, likes comments start pouring in. Not just one person tells you they think you were right; ten people do. And they tell you in the next few minutes and hours, not days later. And they comment on each others' comments about your post.

You get massively more positive reinforcement for your outrage now than you did with newspapers. The outrage gets reinforced, socially ratified. You get praised for it.

It's not just that Facebook hands you more things to be outraged about (not all of them true). It's that the outrage takes much deeper hold in you, because it's reinforced so much.