Most students will open social media apps after a long day of school to see what their friends and family are doing, or just to make the time pass a bit quicker. However, what they see is not random.
Every time that they engage with their feed, whether it be likes, shares, or follows, they are helping the algorithm decide exactly what to show them next.
What was once a place for social connection has now become a conflict zone—a battle for your attention, your ideology, and your beliefs. The use of algorithms and paid political advertisements personalises the user’s feed, controlling what they see, often excluding differing opinions and reinforcing those that are already held.
This article will examine how social media algorithms influence political beliefs, why they favor content that is emotional or provocative, and why they are more vulnerable to this influence than they might be aware of. Because we are still forming our political identities and are particularly susceptible to the influence of social media, this issue is more relevant than ever.
What Are Students Seeing Online?
A survey conducted by The Bite for this article found that 87.5% of the 16 respondents in the Secondary school had encountered political content online that appeared designed to influence their beliefs. The results suggest that algorithm-driven political messaging has become a common part of teenagers’ online experiences.
From a survey of 16 AISB students which shows that an overwhelming majority of students encounter content that seems to be trying to influence their political beliefs.
Many students acknowledged that social media does not necessarily change their core political beliefs outright, but instead the way they interpret issues, perspectives, and arguments.
Grade 10 student Aisha W. reported on the survey that most of the political content she sees already aligns with her existing views. However, she noted that exposure to slightly different perspectives led her “to consider that view and possibly slightly alter it.”
Her response shows how algorithms often reinforce existing beliefs, while still shaping opinions within those belief systems.
Grade 11 student Camilla L. shared a similar perspective, explaining that while her fundamental beliefs remain stable, social media can still affect how she views specific situations, as she says “what does change at times is my opinion on specific approaches or perspectives on certain situations.”
This highlights one of the main concerns regarding algorithm-shaped, ad-supported feeds. Users are more likely to encounter content that aligns with what they already believe, limiting exposure to a wide range of viewpoints.
Another grade 10 student, Inbal E., expressed concern about the influence social media may have even when users actively try to resist it. She explained: “I feel like I try to synthesise my feed and try to be aware of it as much as possible, but I do think it has some measurable effect on my views.” Her comment suggests that even users who are conscious of algorithmic influence may still be affected by repeated exposure to certain types of content.
Grade 11 student Eunho R. focused more directly on the issue of misinformation and bias online, noting that “it plants a bias by showing me things which might be not true or partially true and exaggerated”.
These responses suggest that political influence on social media is not theoretical, but something that students actively encounter in their daily use of social media.
A Teacher’s Perspective on Political Influencers
DP and GID English teacher Christine Calderon explained that one of the biggest issues is the reliability of content on social media. “The sources that students may watch are not always reliable,” she said, noting that many creators are simply individuals with a platform who make money from views and clicks rather than experts.
Calderon adds that this creates an environment where opinions can easily be mistaken for credible information, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.
Calderon also emphasized how this contributes to the polarization of people’s beliefs. She says social media can make people believe that political views are divided into extremes. “You might identify the left being some kind of way, and then the right being some kind of way,” she explains, “when really most people are probably somewhere in the middle.” This shows how an oversimplification, Calderon says, discourages discussion and makes users less willing to understand opposing viewpoints.
It’s almost like someone does the thinking for you.
– Christine Calderon
Another concern Calderon raised is how easily students fall into passive consumption. While many may be aware that algorithms shape their feeds, awareness alone is not enough. “It’s so easy to doomscroll and allow that to form the way that you see the world,” she says, pointing out that students do not always pause to question what they are seeing.
At the same time, Calderon acknowledges that social media has increased political awareness among students. However, she warns that this awareness is not always based on reliable information. She points to figures like Andrew Tate as an example of how influential voices online can shape opinions, particularly among young audiences, in harmful ways.
Calderon also stressed the importance of education and critical thinking. “The best we can do as teachers is provide students with tools to be discerning readers,” she says, explaining that critical thinking should not only be taught in schools, but reinforced at home as well in order to create habits of synthesizing and questioning the reliability of what is seen online.
Echo Chambers and Filter Bubbles Limit Your Growth
Social media platforms shape political beliefs by controlling what content users are exposed to through recommendations shaped by algorithms. “Algorithms prioritize content based on engagement-likes, shares, and watch time, instead of accuracy.”
According to a Cultural Communication And Socialization Journal study, “algorithms are designed to maximize user interaction, which often means promoting emotionally charged or opinion-reinforcing content. As a result users are more likely to encounter content that aligns with their views”.
Researchers at Cultural Communication And Socialization Journal describe these online environments as “echo chambers, digital spaces where users are repeatedly exposed to opinions that reinforce their existing beliefs while opposing perspectives slowly disappear from their feeds. The same ResearchGate article explains that over time, this limited exposure can reinforce beliefs and make them feel more assertive, even if they are based on incomplete information.
A larger review of studies published by Societies also found that social media creates “filter bubbles”, environments where users are rarely exposed to different perspectives.
For teenagers, who spend lots of time online and often rely on social media as a primary source for the news and information, the authors of the study suggest, this effect can be especially powerful.
What do Social Media Companies Do to Combat this, if Anything at All?
The answer is: They don’t, and won’t, do anything unless the law requires it.
According to an article published in Science Po, social media companies have introduced measures such as “offering fact-checking, as some platforms already do,” content moderation, and other attempts to reduce the amount of misinformation within their platforms. However, research suggests that these efforts have a limited impact.
A study discussed in a publication by Northeastern University reports algorithm-driven feeds can still significantly influence political attitudes, even when users are aware they are being curated.
Another study published by Nature showed that exposure to certain types of content can shift political views in measurable ways.
This is simple, social media platforms are designed to maximize engagement and to steal your attention away from the real world. Studies show that content that is emotional, or controversial, tends to generate stronger reactions, which means it is more likely to be promoted by algorithms. Even when companies attempt to reduce harmful content their systems still favor posts that keep users engaged.
How Do You Get Radicalized Online?
Although the influence that algorithms do on teenagers’ political beliefs is concerning, the greater problem is how they gradually lead to them being pushed towards more extreme viewpoints. This polarization is not immediate—rather it happens slowly through the repeated exposure of increasingly emotional and political content that is recommended to users.
Research published by research-sharing platform arXiv, suggests that the exposure to algorithm-driven feeds can lead to the radicalization of the beliefs of people, who generally would have only been on the more moderate end, as they state to have observed that the section of people watching personalized feeds have “an increased tendency towards polarization, which emerges also in conditions where the original model would predict convergence.”
This repeated exposure is called a feedback loop, more specifically, according to the definition given by the for-profit social media marketing company, Kontentino: “A feedback loop in social media is the continuous cycle of user interactions influencing content creators and platform algorithms.”
And, as explained by an article published by The Conversation, “the feedback loop exacerbates the effects of a filter bubble.”
Here is a visualization of how the feedback loop would act in real life:
Over time this cycle will lead to more extreme views than they originally held. Teenagers are especially vulnerable to this process, as they do not yet have a solid political identity.
Are Algorithms the Only Problem?
While the way in which algorithms work are a big factor, they are not the only reason for which extended use of social media can lead to political polarization. Human behaviour is the other.
If you find you agree with everyone else in your social media, you might be afflicted with confirmation bias.
The phenomenon addressed by an academic report in the journal Societies is “where users engage primarily with like-minded others,” so are less frequently exposed to political viewpoints that are not a part of their immediate social circle. When users post their political views, everyone who follows them confirms this without question. (Indeed, pushing back on your friends’ political views may lead you to get unfollowed or unfriended, in real life and/or online, leading to an escalating negative feedback loop where nobody online says what they really think.)
Even though the effects of confirmation bias are present everywhere in daily life, the effects are amplified by social media. Instead of these interactions happening only on occasion as is expected to be the case for most people, users become completely surrounded by them. This makes it a lot easier for their beliefs to be pushed to the extremes.
What Next?
Social Media is not just a place for entertainment, it has clearly become a tool that is being used to shape the political views of its users, especially those of teenagers.
Being informed about how these systems work is an important starting point to being able to analyze how social media may be impacting your beliefs. By questioning what people see online, users can better understand algorithm-driven influence and avoid extremism.