Social Media: A Boon or a Curse?

Written by Lee Suk Pei

According to the Pew Research Center, South Korea ranks first in smartphone ownership and Internet penetration, attaining 94 percent and 96 percent, respectively, in 2018.[1] Accompanying this is heavy reliance on smartphones and the Internet. Though this does not necessarily translate into more screen time, a study with 7,000 participants states that 84 percent of participants reported more than two hours of screen time per day, and 20 percent reported six hours and above![2] This means that in a day, at least two hours of people’s lives are spent logged onto the Internet. Two hours may not seem like a lot, but when this is extended over time, it would mean at least 730 hours are spent online in a year!

Since its invention in the 1970s, the Internet has revolutionized how we live our lives in many ways. Information transfers across different geographical locations, removing barriers and distances between people (though some may take issue with this). Subsequently, the Internet has also allowed for the emergence of many other things online, such as blogs, online forums, and social networking sites (SNSs). As the Internet gets faster and faster, the transfer of information between people is no longer reliant on telephone lines but is instead shared for free online via SNSs. Following this, live broadcasting that was previously limited to media companies has now become easily accessible to the general public, as long as one has an Internet-connected smartphone and an SNS account. This has led to an increase in the amount of user-generated content online, as people are given the freedom to air things to their heart’s content on online platforms. In 2000, OhmyNews, a citizen journalism platform, was started in South Korea, with 80 percent of the content produced by citizens. It is the largest and most established citizen media platform at the moment.

Many people have lauded the relatively open accessibility of social media for creating a vibrant democracy, as everyone is now given the opportunity to speak, and all are better informed when news that is normally not covered by the mainstream media is now appearing on social media or reported on citizen media portals. In the meantime, as more and more people are connected through SNSs, many social movements are also made possible to mobilize the public, and solidarity activities can now also be coordinated across different geographical locations more easily. One example is the Candlelight Movement in 2016, when people in several locations in South Korea organized their own candlelight vigils, along with people from other regions who met together in Seoul by coordinating through social media. Other prominent examples include the Arab Spring, the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong, the Sunflower Student Movement in Taiwan, and the Bersih Movement in Malaysia. These had all made use of social media to spread their message, informing people of the situation at the protest site, exposing the biased reporting of state-sponsored media, and other such activities. With so many things achievable through the use of social media platforms, are we there yet? Are we liberated, and has the public discourse been democratized with the advancement of information and communication technology?

Are We There Yet?
In order to answer this question effectively, awareness of the continuous advancement of technology may be able to offer us a glimpse of where we currently are. As we usher in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, big data has become a very much talked-about topic. So, how does this relate to democracy?

Just when we thought of its low cost and how the decentralized and bottom-up nature of social media is beneficial to democracy, what we did not realize is that the data that we logged in with may not be working only for us. Recorded digital footprints feed into big data and are baked into algorithms to help tech giants to micro-target advertisements to potential consumers. The more hours we spend logged on, the better able they are to understand our preferences, and the better able they are to aim those advertisements at us. By doing this, they are able to sell advertisement space at higher rates.

Nevertheless, as those algorithms and filter bubbles work to group people of the same interests together, they have also created echo chambers among users. Within these echo chambers, people are constantly being fed information that conforms to their beliefs and preferences. As a result, instead of having meaningful exchanges between people that eventually lead to a greater understanding of each other, people are made surer of their own biases. This view is not new among researchers in this field. Another detriment is that users have no control over whose data is being shared, thereby impinging on one’s right to privacy. One example is the case where users’ data was shared with the data company Cambridge Analytica to sway election results.

Furthermore, with freedom of expression, we also need to question what the gatekeeping standards are for content to be uploaded online and who the gatekeepers are. How do we ensure that ordinary citizens with no training in journalism or journalistic ethics are able to exercise sound judgment when it comes to content censorship? These are important questions to ask, especially when there is more and more fake news being spread online due to no regulations. We have no doubt seen when this backfires. In the case of the Myanmar Rohingyas’ plight, Facebook admitted that it did not have enough content moderators well versed in the Burmese language to weed out hateful content and, hence, left it circulating online, provoking hateful emotions among the Myanmar locals.

Nevertheless, as technology continues to advance in the name of improving our lives, we are, in fact, becoming increasingly powerless, as we are in possession of less control and understanding of the very technology that is etching a bigger part of our lives. One prominent example is the case between Apple and the FBI, where the court that ordered Apple to surrender the information it had on terrorists Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik was rejected on the grounds that Apple guaranteed its customers data protection. The case eventually ended up with court-hired hackers obtaining this information without Apple’s consent. This case is shocking in the sense that justice is no longer pursued via conventional methods but has instead become subject to technology. This reshuffling of the traditional power hierarchy sees those who possess and understand technology at the top, while those who do not have access to the same technology and knowhow are at the bottom. All types of technology seem to be a double-edged sword, yet it is what the sword owner knows as well as how he or she uses it that makes the outcome different.

Sources
[1] Sohn, J. (2018, June 24). Korea no. 1 worldwide in
smartphone ownership, internet penetration. Retrieved from
The Korea Herald website: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.
php?ud=20180624000197
[2] The Vision Council. (2012). Keeping your eyes safe in a digital
age. Alexandria, VA: The Vision Council.

The Author
Suk Pei is currently studying for her master’s degree at Chonnam National University. Having been in Gwangju for almost one year, she is starting to extend her tentacles to meet different people and participate in various activities here in Gwangju. Gwangju is definitely more than what meets the eye.