The effect of the Internet on Society and the threat to Democracy

 Some argue in broadsides that the power the Internet gives each one of us to control deliberately what information and opinions we are exposed to – to tailor a communicative world to our prior interests and convictions – is a threat to democracy. 

The threat is that the choices made by individuals will add up collectively to a fragmentation of society so pervasive that the public sphere will cease to exist, and we will be left with multiple like-minded subgroups whose members talk only to their fellow members and never to those with whom they disagree, and who are exposed only to the kinds of opinions they want to hear.