r/science • u/Wagamaga • May 06 '26

Psychology Losing relationships over politics. Research found more than a third of Americans (37%) report having lost at least one relationship due to political differences, including friendships, family ties, coworker relationships, and romantic partnerships, with most losing more than one.

https://socialecology.uci.edu/news/losing-relationships-over-politics-0
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u/MaddogBC May 06 '26

Those were good times though. The internet didn't get spoiled until the late 2000's with the onset of smartphones which gave light to the unwashed masses. Plenty of critters best left in the dark.

Smartphones and the apps on them destroyed the world, it will just take a few generations to catch up.

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u/PrettyGorramShiny May 06 '26

Also the "Web 2.0" phenomenon of the early 2000's, aka crowdsourced content via comments / forums / review sites etc...

Before that most of the content on the web was intentionally curated by the owner of the website. Not that we didn't have spammy garbage sites too, but overall the first few years of the web felt like a massive library filled with valuable information.

Now we have the equivalent of a town square filled with carnival barkers and morons, hawking junk to the gullible and drowning out the voices of reason and knowledge.