Technologies Accomplishing the Goals of Social Media

Technology has remodeled and influenced many aspects of people's lives. Electronic devices are not additional but are becoming the basic need for everyone. Every individual is attached to their electronic devices, and they prefer to confine themselves in a bubble so that they can use technology without any interruption. The use of social media has increased tremendously to the extent of engaging almost one-third of the world’s population as of January 2016 (WeAreSocial, 2016). Advancements of  technology such as the fast processing power and state of the art touch screens in mobile devices might bring positive shifts in society, but we should not refute the threat that technology brings.  

One of the biggest dilemmas of the current generation is how to stay connected with as many people as possible. It is getting almost impossible not to get influenced by social media. Many people believe that we have moved from the information age into the disinformation age due to unsolicited social media interactions. It is getting laborious to differentiate what is right and what is fake news on most social media platforms. Every technological product is created to solve certain problems or to make life easier for the user, but the real question is, what about the problems originated by the introduction of such a new technology?

I recently watched a Netflix film called "The Social Dilemma" This film highlights various perspectives that we need to learn and understand as social media users. This movie made me realize what is wrong with the tech industry right now and how the ultimate focus of any tech industry is to make users addicted to their products. When a tech industry designs a specific product, they are more focused on revenue than the impact the product is going to have on the real life experiences of their users.. The significant point that we need to understand while using free digital platforms like Facebook, Youtube, and TikTok is when we are not paying for the product, then we are the product. Our time and attention are the product that is being sold to advertisers.

Tech companies are not only taking our time but also our privacy. Every action we take on social media is monitored and recorded. Social media has a tremendous amount of information about us than we can ever imagine. Social media is influencing our decisions at every step of our life. Almost 75% of B2B buyers were influenced by information they found on social media (Gilhan, 2015). Most digital platforms are now even storing users' activities while they are not using that particular platform. For example, Facebook recently introduced a new feature called “Off-Facebook activity,” which is used to track and record all the activities that we perform outside Facebook. This feature is introduced to learn more about users' behaviors and can store some of users essential information like what they are buying, bank information used to make a particular purchase, email information, and any search on google. These platforms influence how we spend our time and what we are considering to buy. Every tech company is trying to make technology more persuasive so that it can change and learn the behavior of the users.

We have moved from having a tool-based technology to addiction and manipulation based technology. The social media websites are not just controlling our time and attention, they are also taking over the users’ sense of self-worth and identity. We determine our value in society by likes and comments we received on social media. We are continuously looking for approval and acceptance of social media, and we are more worried about what people think about us than our actual worth in real life. We curate our lives around the perceived sense of perfection. Several studies showed that technological addictions, including obsessions on the Internet and social networking sites, had positive connections with stress, anxiety, and depression and negative association with educational performance, all of which negatively affect satisfaction with life (Hawi & Samaha, 2016).

People are curious about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to change the future for us. Social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are already utilizing an algorithm designed using AI with the ultimate goal to analyze their users’ behaviors and self-modify the product's algorithm to understand the needs of the users. The algorithm has a mind of its own, and it is complex to understand how the algorithm works and updates on its own. Even people who designed those algorithms can not fully understand how it works (Gershgorn, 2017). We are already fighting the unfair fight against AI because when we are using social media, AI can predict our moves like what kind of video we are most likely to watch or what kind of post excites us the most. AI is creating different virtual reality for each individual based on their needs and preferences. People accept the virtual reality that is presented to them by the AI because it is customized and designed based on their likes and dislikes.We can argue that technology is not a threat, and it depends on how we are using it. It is not about the technology, but its ability to influence the user. It is our responsibility to understand how social media works as a user. Every user should be able to distinguish what is a cool thing to do and what is the right thing to do on social media. Social media can be used to enhance society if users are not treated as a resource to generate profit and its final goal is to make the world a better place.

References

Gershgorn, D. (2017). AI is now so complex its creators can’t trust why it makes decisions. Artificial intelligence article. Retrieved from https://qz.com/1146753/ai-is-now-so-complex-its-creators-cant-trust-why-it-makes-decisions/

Hawi, N. S., Samaha, M. (2016). To excel or not to excel: Strong evidence on the adverse effect of smartphone addiction on academic performance. Computers & Education, 98, 81–89. 

WeAreSocial . (2016). Social media use: January 2016. Retrieved June 2016, from http://www.slideshare.net/wearesocialsg/digital-in-2016/31-wearesocialsg_31JAN2016_SOCIAL_MEDIA_USE

Gilhan, C. (2015). The role of social media in B2B buyers’ decision making. Retrieved from https://www.b2bmarketing.net/en-gb/resources/blog/role-social-media-b2b-buyers-decision-making

Rhodes, L. (Producers), & Orlowski, J. (Director). (2020). The Social Dilemma [Motion Picture]. United States: Netflix original film.