This time, the “Backfire Effect”, like confirmation bias, but where more counter evidence deepens the conviction in the original belief. From Dave McRaney via David Gurteen.
The backfire effect push[es] those who [-] put more thought into the matter farther [away] from the gray areas.
As social media [-] progresses, confirmation bias and the backfire effect will become more and more difficult to overcome […].
As information technology progresses, the behaviors you are most likely to engage in when it comes to belief, dogma, politics and ideology seem to remain fixed. In a world blossoming with new knowledge, burgeoning with scientific insights into every element of the human experience, like most people, you still pick and choose what to accept even when it comes out of a lab and is based on 100 years of research.
In a world where everything comes to you on demand, your beliefs may never [actually] be challenged.
And flame wars can only intensify
Most online battles follow a similar pattern, each side launching attacks and pulling evidence from deep inside the web to back up their positions until, out of frustration, one party resorts to an all-out ad hominem nuclear strike. If you are lucky, the comment thread will get derailed in time for you to keep your dignity, or a neighboring commenter will help initiate a text-based dogpile on your opponent.
What should be evident from the studies on the backfire effect is you can never win an argument online. When you start to pull out facts and figures, hyperlinks and quotes, you are actually making the opponent feel as though they are even more sure of their position than before you started the debate.
Also put me in mind of this “false neutrality“.
Similar, but different.