Inside the Funhouse Mirror Factory: How Social Media Distorts Perceptions of Norms

Norms on social media tend to be more extreme than offline norms–creating false perceptions of norms. The current paper explains how modern technology interacts with human psychology to create a funhouse mirror version of social norms. Specifically, we integrate research from political science, psychology, and cognitive science to explain how online environments become saturated with false norms, who is misrepresented online, what happens when online norms deviate from offline norms, where people are affected online, and why expressions are more extreme online. We provide a framework for understanding and correcting for the distortions in our perceptions of social norms that are created by social media platforms. We argue the funhouse mirror nature of social media can be pernicious for individuals and society by increasing pluralistic ignorance and false polarization.