A Sunday poll said that nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that social media is causing division.
In an NBC News poll conducted in April, 64% of Americans said that they believed that social media did more to divide the nation than to unify it. By contrast, only 27% of people surveyed said that social media unified Americans. The margin of error for the 1,000 adult respondents was +/-3.1 percentage points.
The 64% figure included the majority of Democrats (54%), Republicans (77%), and Independents (65%). (RELATED: Trump Launches New Communication Platform)
Most Americans admit they use social media at least once a day, but they also believe platforms like Facebook and Twitter are doing more to divide the nation than to bring it together, according to results from latest national @NBCNews poll. https://t.co/fHoZonyaLq
— NBC News (@NBCNews) May 9, 2021
The majority of both young adults (61%), and seniors (71%) agreed that social media was dividing the nation.
When looking across racial lines, the majority of whites (70%) and latinos (56%) also said they thought that social media was divisive.
Black respondents were split on the issue, with 42% of those surveyed saying that it is more divisive while 40% said that social media was unifying.
These numbers show an increase since March 2019 poll in which 57% of respondents said that social media was more likely to divide Americans, while 35% said that social media was unifying.
When it comes to quality of life, 49% of respondents said that social media made their lives better, while 37% of people surveyed say that it made their lives worse. The margin of error for the 655 adults who use social media daily was +/-3.8 percentage points.
The same NBC poll found that the majority of parents reported that their children’s usage of computers has increased during the pandemic, with 54% saying that usage of electronic devices increased over the past year.
For adults, 43% of respondents said that their screen time has increased, while 8% said that it has decreased. The margin of error of the 238 parents in the poll with children under the age of 18 was +/-6.4 percentage points.