Social media platforms can be toxic environments at times, and tensions can spill over in the real world, as with the storming of the Capitol Building in Washington DC following the last US presidential election. Nowadays, heated polarization seems to emerge everywhere online and connects with our identities – from the music you love, to the food you eat and the sports team you support.

Increasingly, models inspired by physical phenomena – such as phase transitions, shockwaves and turbulence – are helping to better understand online interactions. And in some cases, this knowledge is even helping to develop solutions for improving online discourse. The billion-dollar question is whether social media companies genuinely have the will to change.

For more on this topic, check out the recent Physics World feature article ‘The laws of division: physicists probe into the polarization of political opinions’.