Is encountering political disagreement on social media linked to cutting ties?

Details

The researchers studied Hong Kong as a case of a politically polarized society, using an online survey that followed 791 adults over two waves. They examined whether people disconnected from social media contacts with whom they disagreed politically.

Encountering political disagreement was associated with disconnecting from those contacts, filtering the sources of information people encountered. The analysis also found an indirect relationship between political disagreement and activist participation through this filtering of information sources. Contrary to the researchers’ expectations, that indirect relationship was stronger among people with less emotional hostility toward the opposing political side.

The abstract does not say whether activist participation increased or decreased, or how large the relationships were. These are observational survey findings from Hong Kong, not experimental proof of cause and effect or evidence that the same pattern occurs everywhere.