People used to rely on news outlets to know what's happening around the world; now, most of us get our news from social media. Because we share articles that fit in with our beliefs and connect with others who have similar views to our own, the news we get becomes recycled based on our previous biases. Here lies the ultimate danger of social media: our news has become so polarized that we lack the exposure necessary for an advancement in society.

The idea of our influences directing us toward belief and action is not new. Gustave Le Bon, one of the greatest philosophers dedicated to the work on crowd psychology, makes the case that since the dawn of time we have always been under the influence of religious, political, and social illusions. He states that because the masses have always been under these influences, we are ingrained to seek out an illusion to grasp to under any and all circumstance. He states that philosophers in the 19th century have worked greatly to destroy these illusions, but have not been able to provide the masses with any ideal that could sway them. Due to this, the masses now flock to whichever rhetorician wets their appetites. It seems social media has become a universal outlet to which we grasp onto our illusions, as Le Bon mentions, refusing to diversify ourselves to viewpoints that differ than our own and thereby narrowing our visions of reality and widening the divisions we have from one another and, perhaps even, from truth.