<p>Have sociological researches been made on the levels of literacy, culture, shared ethical values among the users of the many existing social networks compared to the larger national societies the users belong to? What about researches on the proportion of people with racist, homophobic or religiously intolerant attitudes on social media compared to the society as a whole?</p>

<p>I have begun wondering about this issue because I used to have an account on Facebook for a short time and I discovered a reflection of the society of my country, Italy, that I wish I had never discovered: although I am interested to socially interact with the opposite typology of people , I found an overwhelming majority of users, among my co-citizens, plagued by an alarming level of illiteracy and the incapability to understand anything not down to earth, full of racial hatred (which is being sed in my country by some politicians and television channels owned by people politically allied to the far right) and lacking empathy and ethical values that I thought to be shared by almost all mankind, such as respect for the life of drowned refugee children. I hope that the average of my co-citizens having an account on Facebook is worse that the average of my co-citizens as a whole.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-15T19:36:17.173Z
This question is a little bit too related to personal experience. You could either ask the effect that social media has on nationalistic or racist mindsets. Or you could ask whether the proportion of people with racist tendencies is greater on social media than elsewhere.
Seanny123
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-11-16T12:30:27.840Z
@Seanny123 Thank you for your suggestion. I exactly meant to ask whether the proportion of people with racist tendencies is greater on social media than in the embedding society, among some other tendencies: I have reworded the post to focus more on the question.
Self-teaching worker
<social-networks><sociology>
Literacy and other traits of social network users vs. the larger society
Self-teaching worker
# Literacy and other traits of social network users vs. the larger society

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-11-15)

Have sociological researches been made on the levels of literacy, culture, shared ethical values among the users of the many existing social networks compared to the larger national societies the users belong to? What about researches on the proportion of people with racist, homophobic or religiously intolerant attitudes on social media compared to the society as a whole?

I have begun wondering about this issue because I used to have an account on Facebook for a short time and I discovered a reflection of the society of my country, Italy, that I wish I had never discovered: although I am interested to socially interact with the opposite typology of people , I found an overwhelming majority of users, among my co-citizens, plagued by an alarming level of illiteracy and the incapability to understand anything not down to earth, full of racial hatred (which is being sed in my country by some politicians and television channels owned by people politically allied to the far right) and lacking empathy and ethical values that I thought to be shared by almost all mankind, such as respect for the life of drowned refugee children. I hope that the average of my co-citizens having an account on Facebook is worse that the average of my co-citizens as a whole.

**Tags:** social-networks, sociology

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: This question is a little bit too related to personal experience. You could either ask the effect that social media has on nationalistic or racist mindsets. Or you could ask whether the proportion of people with racist tendencies is greater on social media than elsewhere.  
> **username_0**: @username_1 Thank you for your suggestion. I exactly meant to ask whether the proportion of people with racist tendencies is greater on social media than in the embedding society, among some other tendencies: I have reworded the post to focus more on the question.  

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## 0 answers

