Social media is where simple conversations can go south, especially where they involve politics.
A recent Pew research study found 37 percent of users are worn out by political content. Politics is almost certain to divide family and friends at the dinner table and online.
"If you are the type that has largely political feeds or discussions or articles than yeah, it's going to seem a little more rancorous than maybe not," said Henry Mack, an associate dean at Broward College.
Mack says research on social media behavior is mixed but what you get on your feed is tailored to your wants and behaviors.
"Colleges like Broward College are really sort of retweaking their communication disciplines and programs to capture this problem and train students in habits of mind that emphasize empathy and virtue," Mack said.
Facebook and Twitter are so powerful they change the way we talk to each other.
"Social media itself is really supplanting the interpersonal connectivity," Mack said.
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Dr. Joyce Szentpaly at the Neuro Behavioral Institute in Weston says social media activity is part of their routine assessment.
"That's one of the biggest problems is that people take it personally like any general statement and so the idea would be for the person to think about problem solving or to think about pragmatics," she said.
When users are online they tend to react and respond differently, she said.
"For people to remember that social media is a virtual world and yes we're interacting with real people, one another, the best way to interact with people and keep relationship is probably in person, you know, face to face," Szentpaly said.
But politics these days can strain even the tightest relationships, including between sisters.
It's safe to say Christine Perez and Jeannine Petett have always been close.
"Then 2016 happened," Petett said.
The only thing that separates them is age, and politics. Perez is a Democrat and Petett is also a Democrat who voted for Donald Trump.
"He wants to make America great again and I emphatically believe that needs to be done and that we need to be brought back to the way this country used to be," Petett said.
"You should see what she posts on Facebook, I had to block her. Like I had to unfriendly her," Perez said.
They're the kind of disagreements consuming families all across America, and social media may very well be the main instigator.
"It has gotten extremely heated, you know, to where we just screaming at each other. 'You don't understand, why don't you try and understand my view,'" Petett said.
"And it's mostly because we can't understand why we can't understand each other," Perez said.
