Most people do not actively seek out polarizing content when browsing freely

Evidence

Yet, a bunch of good studies show that when you ask people to install a browser plug-in to record their internet activity over a period of several weeks, it turns out that most of us don’t actively seek out polarizing content. In fact, the everyday news diet of many liberals and conservatives seem to overlap quite a bit. So, do we live in echo chambers or not? It depends: regular non-curated browsing does not provide the same perverse incentives as social media. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 465

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Quitting social media for a month causally reduces political polarization — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 459; A tiny minority of motivated users drives most extreme content consumption — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 412; Polarization arises from social media access, not from people’s own content choices — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 466