Perhaps those who spend more time alone socially, are more likely to explore controversial topics because they aren't afraid of how friends/others around them might perceive them. When you're focused on being popular and making lots of friends, talking to everyone about controversial historical and political topics quite often isn't going to help you do that.

I'd think this is basically what's going on.
I know media would probably 'blame it on the socially awkward', being weirdos and such. Luckily, many of us know these loners are mostly the more interesting people :-)