Dr. Ashwani Kumar
Scroll through any social media feed in contemporary India, and a pattern quickly emerges: people aren’t just consuming information; they are consuming affirmation. Platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are designed to keep users engaged by suggesting content that matches their preferences. The more you “like”, the more familiar content you get. Slowly, your digital world shrinks into what we now call an “echo chamber”: a space where you mostly hear your thoughts echoed back, louder each time. This phenomenon is not unique to India, but it takes on a particular edge here because it resonates so strongly with our social history. For centuries, Indian society has been organised around caste, religion, region, kinship, and gender. These were ascriptive identities, assigned at birth and often non-negotiable. People lived, worked, and socialised within their bounded groups. This is what sociologists describe as a “segmental order” in which Interaction across groups existed, but it was limited and carefully regulated/Segmented.
After Independence, India took many initiatives to weaken the traditional rigid structure. The Constitution guaranteed equality. Education created opportunities and encouraged people to think beyond caste and religion. Jobs and educational institutions brought different social groups into common spaces. Most importantly, migration, whether from village to city or across states, compelled people to engage with diversity in their everyday lives. These changes did not erase traditional identities but merely rendered them more porous. New universal frameworks of belonging-such as citizenship, secularism, rights, humanism, and professionalism-emerged to complement and augment traditional parochial interactions. The internet was expected to further accelerate this process of modernization. Digital platforms connecting millions across barriers of geography and class were conceived to deepen democracy and pluralism, but the reality has turned out to be more complicated. It is evident in social media interactions that social media platforms have reinforced the old segmental logic based on the traditional structure of caste and religion to create echo chambers.
These chambers expose users to endless streams of data that reinforce their preexisting beliefs. WhatsApp groups organised by caste perpetuate emphasizes on pride or grievance, and it may be an antagonistic relationship with other communities. Channels organised around religion on Facebook circulate content that heightens exclusivity; it may sometimes turn into fundamentalism. Male-dominated online forums recite misogynistic jokes and memes while presenting them as “cultural authenticity”. Alongside this, conspiracy theories, miracle cures, and superstitions spread unchecked in closed networks where doubt is low and affirmation is high.
What keeps users addicted to these platforms is not simply a sense of identity or belongingness but pleasure. Echo chambers are addictive, especially because here users are procuring entertainment. Watching a video that mocks the “out group” or a story that includes a commentary that glorifies their community offering entertainment and gratification. It is pleasurable to see one’s prejudices reaffirmed and to laugh at the characterizations of out-groups. Algorithms are designed to serve up exactly this kind of emotionally resonant content: anger, outrage, pride, or laughter. There is no doubt that it feels good, but the comfort comes at a cost. By constantly consuming only what pleases us, we risk stagnation of thought.
That is what makes echo chambers problematic, especially in the context of India, where people may hold their traditional segmental thinking in their minds. They do not just repeat ideas; they solidify them. The algorithm rewards the sensational, the polarising, and the emotional, but not what is rational or thoughtful. Over time, this holds those users deeper in a feedback loop where they become more rigid, less responsive to challenge, and unwilling to change their views. This creates what scholars call “epistemic closure”: a state in which users stop engaging with alternative perspectives altogether.
In a society as plural as India, the risks are enormous. Democracy is predicated on dialogue across difference, while echo chambers encourage the opposite: the entrenchment into rigid, exclusionary identities. The digital revival of caste pride, religious exclusivity, patriarchal norms, or anti-rationalism undermines the pluralism that modern India has worked hard to build.It is not surprising that these chambers have become driving force for political actions. Electoral propaganda, targeted, manipulative misinformation, and identity-centred mobilisation can thrive in algorithmic enclaves. A fragmented public sphereemerges in which each group starts to address itself, and common national conversations might shrink. Where meaningful debate might take place, we predominantly now have parallel monologues.
So how should India respond? The answer lies in treating the problem as both technological and social. First, we must socialize digital literacy as a life skill. Learning to use the smartphone is simply not enough; citizens must understand how algorithms influence what they see, that outrage- and pleasure-driven content may feel exploitative and addictive, and how manipulation can hide under the banner of entertainment. Second, institutions-schools, media, and judiciary-must hold fast to universal principles that cut across identity barriers. Educational institutions must specifically teach the young generation to question sources, think critically, and engage with perspectives different from their own.
Third, the regulation of platforms cannot stand still. Content moderation is insufficient; the issue is accountability in terms of algorithmics. Platforms should have obligations to disclose how their systems amplify divisive or sensational content and should be held responsible for curbing harmful amplification. Finally, offline spaces of encounter are still essential. Digital exchanges can never substitute for the real life experience of diversity in classrooms, offices, neighbourhoods, and public forums. Real-world interaction promotes negotiation, empathy, and the softening of rigid identities that cannot emerge from secured echo chambers.
The strength of India’s democracy is based on the way it has constructed societal pluralism by managing its diversity through dialogue, cooperation, and respect. Echo chambers always provide comfort and entertainment, at the cost of foundational risk eroding these modern values. They provide affirmation but not curiosity, coherence & complexity. They provide belonging but at the cost of openness. The challenge is not to abolish group identities; they will remain a crucial aspect of social life, but to ensure they do not become impermeable digital walls. The breach of those walls require public responsibility, institutional vigilance, and above all, the courage to move out from our algorithmic comfort zones. Democracy does not reside only in comfort. It thrives on disagreement, debate, and on the willingness to listen to voices unlike our own. The task for users is to make sure its digital spaces serve that higher democratic purpose, rather than trapping citizens.
(The author is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at UILS, Chandigarh University, Punjab)
