Question

due december 13, 2025 at 11:59 pm
anti - social networks? were just as cliquey online
laura sydell • 2011
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for some people, online social networking sites help them make new friends and keep
in touch with old ones. for others, social networking sites may be reinforcing existing
biases and limits new social experiences.
as you read, identify the author’s claims about the influence of social media.
(1) social networks such as facebook and twitter
are helping people keep in touch with friends
and family. but just how social are those
networks? are internet communities simply
“real - world” cliques moved online?
dwayne aikens uses facebook to stay in
touch with people he already knows —
friends and family who, for the most part,
share his political views. aikens lives in
oakland, calif., and runs a nonprofit that
focuses on health and fitness.
“a lot of my friends are democrats and
liberals,” aikens says — and his facebook
newsfeed reflects that. he doesn’t see many
posts from conservatives, he admits.
facebook’s software may be reinforcing his tendency to only see links from people he
agrees with. when facebook displays your “top news,” it’s guessing what you’re
interested in seeing based on how often you have clicked on a particular friend’s
entries in the past.
social media by martin gysler is licensed
under cc by - nc - sa 2.0.
assessment questions

1. part b: which of the following quotes best supports the

answer to part a?
○ a. “most people don’t click on posts that they disagree
with, explains dean eckles, a stanford ph.d. candidate
studying social networks.” (paragraph 5)
○ b. “facebook and twitter can act as echo chambers
where you interact primarily with others who have similar
interests and politics.” (paragraph 6)
○ c. “that the show is still on the air today is thanks in
part to its fans on twitter.” (paragraph 7)
○ d. “‘i’m meeting strangers,’ she says — two in the last
two weeks, in fact. ‘i met them and i felt like, ‘this is my
tribe.’” (paragraph 13)
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Explanation:

To solve this, we first need to know the answer to Part A (likely about social media reinforcing biases/limiting new experiences). Option B states social networks act as echo chambers with similar interests/politics, which supports the idea that social media limits new social experiences by reinforcing existing biases (cliquey, same - minded interactions). Option A is about not clicking disagreeing posts (less direct support), C is about a show's fans on Twitter (irrelevant to bias/limit), D is about meeting strangers (opposite of limiting new experiences).

Answer:

B. "Facebook and Twitter can act as echo chambers where you interact primarily with others who have similar interests and politics." (Paragraph 6)