I agree with original statement. But we can get there with a little thinking:
It is a fact people's view's are becoming more polarized. Some google searches will get you there. This is due to people now more than ever always having access to others who agree with their views, and ignore people who don't. This is the age of tinder swiping and (un)following (un)subsribing. People have become more replaceable. Agree with this person? This forum? Be there. Disagree? Leave. Like this person? Keep them. Dislike? Ghost them. We meet more people now than we ever meet in humanity's history. The need to learn how to deal with different views is going away, when you can always hide from them and go for places that have supporting views. The need for respectful disagreement is getting lower.
In the past there wasn't as much this choice. In the extreme, nomadic times, you had the same people all your life. Now we are at the other extreme. I'm not surprised that people's relationships are getting more and more superficial, and more temporary. There's always a "us" vs "them" to be had somewhere. With so many people, what used to be sporadic outliers, are now in massive numbers. Even if they still belong to the extremes of the natural distribution.
As we know, these people also tend to be more vocal, "the vocal minority" as it is usually referred, very opinionated, who defend their views to the end.
Then you could also add the fact the emotional trauma is spreading, although this one will make many people scratch their heads. Emotional trauma increases what we refer in psychology as negative affectivity "(...)a broad personality trait that refers to the stable tendency to experience negative emotion". Disagreeableness being one of the most typical ways in which this manifests itself.
Add to this the easyness of being anonymous, being rude without consequences and you get a perfect recipe for at any point you have a conversation online, getting obnoxious, opinionated, rude and disagreeable replies. The step from online conversation to IRL isn't that much of a step at this point, and it still makes sense the same is happening.
This is not a deduction, but a inference. But it fits everything i've just said: it's becoming more difficult to have an opinion, and not be attacked, shamed, mocked or invalidated by it.
It's becoming increasingly rare to hear "I see your point. What I in my view makes more sense is..." and instead "You're wrong, you have no clue what you're talking about and you should go hide yourself."
This can be explained also with age. When somebody says something outrageous, I know the source immediately. For a while, I asked for a source. After the 100x time you get a very clear view about the source, and you just leave. This happened only because I’ve kept asking for a source for more than 10 years.
For example, if Canada, and “personal nouns” are in the same sentence, you know the source. You debated that at least a handful of times. You don’t want to do that again. It’s pointless. But still, I hear that fake news from time to time from my friends. Even after, I clearly proved them that it’s fake news. It’s just pointless.
It is a fact people's view's are becoming more polarized. Some google searches will get you there. This is due to people now more than ever always having access to others who agree with their views, and ignore people who don't. This is the age of tinder swiping and (un)following (un)subsribing. People have become more replaceable. Agree with this person? This forum? Be there. Disagree? Leave. Like this person? Keep them. Dislike? Ghost them. We meet more people now than we ever meet in humanity's history. The need to learn how to deal with different views is going away, when you can always hide from them and go for places that have supporting views. The need for respectful disagreement is getting lower.
In the past there wasn't as much this choice. In the extreme, nomadic times, you had the same people all your life. Now we are at the other extreme. I'm not surprised that people's relationships are getting more and more superficial, and more temporary. There's always a "us" vs "them" to be had somewhere. With so many people, what used to be sporadic outliers, are now in massive numbers. Even if they still belong to the extremes of the natural distribution.
As we know, these people also tend to be more vocal, "the vocal minority" as it is usually referred, very opinionated, who defend their views to the end.
Then you could also add the fact the emotional trauma is spreading, although this one will make many people scratch their heads. Emotional trauma increases what we refer in psychology as negative affectivity "(...)a broad personality trait that refers to the stable tendency to experience negative emotion". Disagreeableness being one of the most typical ways in which this manifests itself.
Add to this the easyness of being anonymous, being rude without consequences and you get a perfect recipe for at any point you have a conversation online, getting obnoxious, opinionated, rude and disagreeable replies. The step from online conversation to IRL isn't that much of a step at this point, and it still makes sense the same is happening.
This is not a deduction, but a inference. But it fits everything i've just said: it's becoming more difficult to have an opinion, and not be attacked, shamed, mocked or invalidated by it.
It's becoming increasingly rare to hear "I see your point. What I in my view makes more sense is..." and instead "You're wrong, you have no clue what you're talking about and you should go hide yourself."