I clicked, up popped a long list of newspaper headlines on Twitter:

Hate Crimes Against Asian Americans…

Transgender athletes banned…

Matt Gaetz accused of sex trafficking …

Marjorie Taylor Greene calls Rep. David Cicilline, ‘Rep. Mussolini…’

Rep. Cicilline tells Greene ‘get lost…’

Biden stumbles three times…

Trump rules the GOP…

Howls rolled on.

People cheered, liked, shared.

Years ago, when Gary Pearce told me, I use Twitter like a clipping service, I thought social media gave people a new convenient way to sit at a computer, click, read dozens of newspaper articles – but I missed a subtle trap: It also gave each person a way to only follow people they agreed with and ignore everyone else.

Pro-Trumpsters followed pro-Trumpsters, anti-Trumpsters followed anti-Trumpsters, conservatives cheered conservatives, liberals cheered liberals, each group living in an echo chamber of howling voices agreeing with them and, when that happens, no one has much doubt he’s right.

The result spells polarization.