A 37-country Pew survey finds growing concern about political division and manipulation—even as people continue to value the information and participation platforms make possible.
Sixty-four percent of Americans say social media has been bad for democracy, according to an October 1 Pew Research Center report. That figure is unchanged from 2022, but attitudes elsewhere are moving toward the American assessment. In Germany, negative views rose from 41% to 61%; in the Netherlands, they increased from 54% to 70%. The research surveyed 45,658 people across 37 countries between February and May 2026. Its findings complicate the familiar promise that giving more people a public platform necessarily strengthens democracy. Access to a conversation and confidence in that conversation are becoming separate judgments.
More Information, Less Confidence
The survey does not describe a world that has rejected social media. Across the countries surveyed, a median of 55% say it has been good for democracy, compared with 35% who say it has been bad. Yet a median of 79% believe access to the internet and social media makes people easier to manipulate through false information and rumors, while 68% say it increases political division. Those concerns coexist with perceived benefits: 77% say these technologies make people more informed, and 60% say they give people a more meaningful political voice. These are country medians, rather than percentages of a single worldwide population. Together, they suggest that people recognize the usefulness of platforms while questioning the conditions under which information circulates.
In the United States, concern about division reaches across party identification. Eighty-three percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, and 82% of Democrats and Democratic leaners, say internet and social media access has made people more politically divided. Agreement about the problem does not establish agreement about its causes or solutions. It does, however, show that dissatisfaction extends beyond one party’s frustration with unfavorable coverage. The survey measures people’s perceptions; it does not establish how much polarization platforms cause or which design choices produce it. Its evidence is strongest on a narrower point: Americans broadly believe the online information environment is making political differences harder to navigate.
The Feed Is Not a Census
SSC’s reporting on online diaspora conflict and its offline consequences examined a related problem: highly visible hostility can become mistaken for a complete picture of community relationships. Arguments over Black identity can generate boycotts, reputational consequences and disputes over representation, while everyday cooperation receives far less attention. Pew’s findings concern democracy across national populations, rather than that specific conflict. The connection is interpretive: when the most antagonistic exchanges dominate what people encounter, those exchanges can influence how they understand the wider public. An active comment section cannot establish how an entire community thinks or behaves.
The route into divisive content can also begin with something ordinary. In SSC’s examination of confidence advice becoming misogynistic messaging, research showed how accounts seeking material about masculinity could receive increasingly hostile recommendations about women. That reporting addressed a specific recommendation experiment, while Pew asks people to assess their broader information environment. Read together, they identify different parts of the concern: what platforms place in front of users, and how people judge the consequences. More information does not guarantee a wider perspective when the material repeatedly reinforces suspicion toward another group.
Participation Still Has Value
Younger adults remain more positive about social media’s democratic contribution. In Britain, 60% of adults ages 18 to 34 describe its impact as good, compared with 31% of those 50 and older. In the United States, the corresponding figures are 44% and 28%. Younger people’s optimism should not be treated as proof that they overlook the risks; Pew finds that they often recognize both benefits and harms. For people whose political participation includes discovering issues, sharing experiences and reaching others online, the platform’s usefulness can remain tangible even when trust in its information is limited.
The task ahead is to preserve participation while improving the conditions in which it happens. For publishers, that means making original evidence accessible, distinguishing reporting from interpretation and correcting errors where readers encountered them. For platforms, it means allowing meaningful scrutiny of recommendation systems and how they distribute misleading material. Pew’s survey cannot tell us which reform will work. It does show why increasing the volume of political speech is an incomplete measure of progress: people need opportunities to speak, reliable ways to evaluate what they hear and reasons to believe disagreement can produce understanding rather than another round of division.