[sklearncowboy]

To me the easiest way to understand social media is to read Freud's Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. It is a brilliant book as it is really just Freud commentating on The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind by Gustave Le Bon.

The most basic idea is once you join a psychological group you stop being fully rational and mostly act on emotions driven by the group.

Everything just makes sense after digesting parts of that book.

The part you mention about organized religions is also just the group.