Is the Internet Causing Political Polarization? Evidence from Demographics
Open accessAbstract
We combine nine previously proposed measures to construct an index of political polarization among US adults.We find that the growth in polarization in recent years is largest for the demographic groups least likely to use the internet and social media.For example, our overall index and eight of the nine individual measures show greater increases for those older than 75 than for those aged 18-39.These facts argue against the hypothesis that the internet is a primary driver of rising political polarization.
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La polarización afectiva no ocurre en todas las capas etarias de manera similar.
“Asimismo, la polarización afectiva -es decir, la intensificación de sentimientos más extremos hacia los propios y los “otros”-, no ocurre en todas las capas etarias de manera similar.”
From ¿Es válido atribuir la polarización política a la comunicación digital? Sobre burbujas, plataformas y polarización afectiva (2020) · cites this paper as Boxell et al, 2017
Investigaciones en Estados Unidos muestran que la gente de mayor edad expresa una pronunciada intensificación ideológica a comparación de grupos jóvenes.
“Investigaciones en Estados Unidos muestran que la gente de mayor edad expresa una pronunciada intensificación ideológica a comparación de grupos jóvenes donde el proceso no tuvo la misma intensidad (Boxell et al, 2017).”
From ¿Es válido atribuir la polarización política a la comunicación digital? Sobre burbujas, plataformas y polarización afectiva (2020) · cites this paper as Boxell et al, 2017
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Gilbert, A. S. (2018) · Thesis Eleven · doi:10.1177/0725513618776699 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“The intention here is not to undertake an empirical examination of ‘algorithms’ or their consequences, which continue to be contested (Boxell et al., 2017).”
BackgroundPartisan Bias, Economic Expectations, and Household SpendingPreprint
Mian, A., Sufi, A., & Khoshkhou, N. (2015) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.2620828 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
Politics in the facebook era. Evidence from the 2016 US presidential elections
Liberini, F., Redoano, M., Russo, A., Cuevas, √., & Cuevas, R. (2025) · European Journal of Political Economy · doi:10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2025.102641 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Polanski, A., & Vega‐Redondo, F. (2022) · Journal of Economic Theory · doi:10.1016/j.jet.2022.105576 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Status Threat, Social Concerns, and Conservative Media: A Look at White America and the Alt-Right
Isom, D. A., Boehme, H. M., Mikell, T. C., Chicoine, S., & Renner, M. (2021) · Societies · doi:10.3390/soc11030072 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Martínez, I. C., Martínez, J. M. R., Zapata, C. M., & Moreno, S. M. (2022) · Revista de Comunicación · doi:10.26441/rc21.1-2022-a6 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Gómez, J. D. V., & Rojas, J. C. S. (2022) · Revista Guillermo de Ockham · doi:10.21500/22563202.5433 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Communities, Gateways, and Bridges: Measuring Attention Flow in the Reddit Political Sphere
Rollo, C., Morales, G. D. F., Monti, C., & Panisson, A. (2022) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-19097-1_1 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Eilders, C., Kelm, O., & Weinmann, C. (2022) · Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen · doi:10.1515/fjsb-2022-0024 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Ortiz-González, A., & Berganza, R. (2022) · Communication & Society · doi:10.15581/003.35.4.185-199 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“Boxell et al. (2017) cannot attribute this growth to the Internet, since, in their study, it is the population groups with less access to this medium that have experienced a greater growth of this phenomenon.”
BackgroundKrause, N. M., Wirz, C. D., Scheufele, D. A., & Xenos, M. A. (2019) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190900250.003.0005 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Wazzan, A., & Aldamen, Y. (2023) · Journalism and Media · doi:10.3390/journalmedia4040064 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“More recent research claims that social media does not necessarily raise polarization (Boxell et al. 2017), but rather can minimize it by introducing users to a variety of viewpoints and therefore lead to less narrow political views (Dubois and Blank 2018; Algan et al. 2019; Barber’a 2015).”
BackgroundAre Judges Like Umpires? Political Affiliation and Corporate ProsecutionsPreprint
Gormley, T. A., Kaviani, M., & Maleki, H. (2020) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.3513177 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Partisanship, optimism, and firm innovation
Jiao, A., Lu, J., & Ren, H. (2024) · Financial Management · doi:10.1111/fima.12455 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Media choice and audience perceptions: Evidence from visual framing of immigration in news stories
Gasparyan, O., & Сироткина, Е. (2025) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0331219 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“Internet users may be less polarized than those who consume news offline [58], and exposure to diverse content online may even temper polarization at the mass level [59].”
Ponce, M. L., Ibáñez, D. B., & Gonzales, H. M. S. (2024) · Revista ICONO14 · doi:10.7195/ri14.v22i2.2078 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
The Propagation of Misinformation in Social Media
Rogers, R. (2023) · Amsterdam University Press eBooks · doi:10.1515/9789048554249 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Impact of Social/Traditional Media on Political Polarization
Goyal, S., & Goyal, M. (2023) · Journal of Student Research · doi:10.47611/jsrhs.v12i2.4296 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Hwang, T. (2017) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108890960.012 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
“It is unclear that the Internet is in fact increasing polarization (Boxell, Gentzkow, and Shapiro 2017).”
BackgroundThe Performance of Diverse Teams: Evidence from U.S. Mutual FundsPreprint
Evans, R. B., Prado, M. P., Rizzo, A. E., & Zambrana, R. (2019) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.3505619 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Affective polarization and political engagement in the United States: what factors matter?
Ali, M., & Altawil, A. (2022) · Atlantic Journal of Communication · doi:10.1080/15456870.2022.2076856 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“This result is consistent with that of previous studies (Boxell et al., 2017).”
BackgroundResultUS partisan conflict uncertainty and households' access to bank credit: Evidence from UK survey data
Apergis, N., Cooray, A. V., & Rehman, M. U. (2022) · Global Finance Journal · doi:10.1016/j.gfj.2022.100744 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Online Platforms and the Fair Exposure Problem under Homophily
Schoeffer, J., Ritchie, A., Naggita, K., Monachou, F., Finocchiaro, J., & Juarez, M. (2023) · Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.1609/aaai.v37i10.26404 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
- Authors
- Boxell, L., Gentzkow, M., & Shapiro, J.
- Affiliations
- National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
- Venue
- National Bureau of Economic Research
- Publisher
- National Bureau of Economic Research
- Published
- 2017-03
- OpenAlex
- W2604584490
- Cited by
- 226
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 22 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 45 · 2019: 46 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 10 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 1
- Type
- report
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Locations
- National Bureau of Economic Research (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- National Bureau of Economic Research (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Brown University
- Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Keywords
- political polarization, internet use, social media use, demographic differences, older adults, age differences, polarization index, United States adults
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Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
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