Researchers Piotr Górski and Professor Janusz Hołyst, who study social behaviour using statistical physics and complex systems at the Warsaw University of Technology, found that rising social polarization is linked not to an increase in close friendships, but to the explosion of weaker social ties fostered by online platforms.

Analysing data from around 30 social networks, the team found that loose acquaintances and occasional contacts amplify the role of social status in human relationships, making social divisions more likely.

The researchers say the results highlight the importance of strengthening the quality and not simply the quantity of social relationships.

PAP - Science in Poland: How do you understand social polarization in the context of your research? How can it be explained to someone who is not a social scientist?

Piotr Górski: There is no single definition of social polarization. This is not as clear-cut a concept as mass or energy in physics. In our work, we look at polarization through the prism of human relations: who likes whom, who dislikes whom, and how larger divisions arise from such relations.

This can be explained with a simple example of three friends: Basia, Michał and Tomek. Of course, it is best when everyone likes each other. If Basia and Michał like each other, but they both dislike Tomek, then we have a situation resembling a division into two camps: 'us' and 'him'. However, if everyone dislikes each other, we can talk about a highly conflicted system, divided into three 'camps'.

In our approach, we measure how often such small sets of relations appear in the social network, leading to divisions into antagonistic groups. We then average these local observations to describe the level of polarization of the entire group. In other words, polarization in our study means not only a difference of opinion, but above all a structure of social relations in which opposing camps appear.

PAP - Science in Poland: This study shows that more contacts can foster polarization, but not because we have more close friends. Could you say that the key is the increase in the number of superficial relationships and casual acquaintances, which are easier thanks to social media? How would you explain this mechanism in the simplest way possible?

Piotr Górski: You summed up the main proposal of our work very well: the increase in polarization in recent years can be explained by the increase in the number of weak relations, not by strong social relations. For such weak relations, social status is more important: who is higher and who is lower in the hierarchy, for example who is an influencer and who is a follower.

Regarding the mechanism itself: In our research, we compared different social groups with both stronger and weaker relations. The results indicate that where the share of weaker relations was greater, status mechanisms played a greater role.

Our work contributes to the ongoing discussion about the causes of the observed polarization. In the work by Stefan Thurner and co-authors published in PNAS in 2025, one of the assumptions was the increase in the number of close friendships in recent years. However, sociologists have questioned this assumption. We show an alternative path: the increase in the number of loose acquaintances may be the reason for the observed increase in polarization.

PAP - Science in Poland: Do the results suggest that the problem is not social media itself, but the way it changes the structure of our relations? What practical conclusions can be drawn from this research?

Janusz Hołyst: Our results suggest that because social media increases the number of shallow, superficial and weak acquaintances, people are increasingly organizing themselves based on this type of relations. Unfortunately, this leads to increased social polarization. The practical conclusion is that it is not enough to increase the number of contacts between people. More connections do not always mean greater social integration. We should be aware that increasing the number of interactions thanks to social media may also lead to negative social changes, because these media primarily provide weak connections on which we later build our social identity.

Of course, this does not mean that the solution is to give up social media. A more realistic conclusion is that we should pay more attention to the quality of social relations. We should create spaces - both online and offline - that strengthen more lasting contacts based on deeper trust. From the perspective of our research, the strength and nature of relations may be as important as the number of contacts.

To reduce deepening social polarization, we should consider how to restore stronger positive social relations. But this is no longer a matter for physicists.

PAP - Science in Poland: Thank you for the interview.

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The authors of the paper are Piotr Górski, PhD, and Professor Janusz Hołyst from the Laboratory of Physics in Economics and Social Sciences at the Faculty of Physics of the Warsaw University of Technology, Giacomo Vaccario, PhD, from ETH Zurich, and Professor Michael Macy from Cornell University.

PAP - Science in Poland, Anna Mikołajczyk-Kłębek

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