Whenever we encounter a weird landmark in our seemingly long journey, we are excited and imagine the whole new world we would jump into; yet, at the same time, we are afraid of whether we should move forward, asking ourselves: “Are the upcoming changes worth itself?” We are into the same reaction when raising our head towards our giant product – technology or, more specifically, social media.
Technology is known as the nerd evolution, which was created to initially serve as human storage and transmission of information for scientific purpose. Through time, the giant grows along with human’s explosive demand in identifying and sharing their personalities as well as the freedom in accessing information. Human reaction to the rapid development of their “child” was positive with the assumption that technology would improve human relationship in certain forms of progressive social, cultural, and political change (Lindgren, 49.) Such high hope in the enlightenment of technology in our society is called technological determinism.
As mentioned, technology is initially our product, meaning that its being-worth-the-effort-and-time depends on our bad or good using habit. Tim Berners-Lee, the father of world wide web for nearly 30 years, expected the application of technology in establishing e-government, online healthcare service and data operation, or school with unlimited library and ultimate education tools. Technology was more than simply a product – it is a tool or even supportive business partner. Amazon started their digital business as an online book retailers and became one of the biggest tech companies in the world thanks to wise tech investments. Especially when 5G network arrives, not only data but also any kind of devices in our daily lives can be connected via the internet, creating such a smart environment that human could ever imagine. Lights are on whenever we want without touching the button physically; information of citizens are recorded so that the government can keep track of their legal or possibly illegal activities. How magical the product becomes for us.
Cyberoptimism still runs high since one of our most basic social need is fulfilled – communication. Human have a tendency to express themselves and desire to be heard – in this case, technology and social media become a helpful right hand in that people can share their stories, update their status rapidly, and see each other no matter where they are as long as their devices are connected to the internet. The Internet makes a breakthrough that television has not be able to finish:
The Internet can bring people of like interests and minds together in ways heretofore unseen, but those similarities can range from a past history of sexual abuse among people in great need of anonymous social support, to cirulent hatred of other racial groups.
Social psychologists Katelyn McKenna and John Bargh (2000:6)
Cyberoptimism still runs high since people find themselves being accepted and nurtured by the society that they have chosen to get involved on the Internet. Social media is the world behind the door of freedom that users decide whenever they want to get in and out; also through that door, they may come back to real life with real opportunities such as friends or even jobs.
However, cyberoptimism may not be always as high when people have realized that the opening world was not freely created by them. They have various options when shopping online but they became reluctant when aware of surveillance or cookies. Facebook was a huge social network that was popular not only to the young but also the old. Currently, a minority of users abandon Facebook when there was a scandal of selling users’ information to third-parties. Artificial technology was developed rapidly that automatic advertising phone calls get more annoying than ever before. Targeted advertising and increased commercialisation forced human to the reality that they were no longer their own bosses on the internet. The network is no longer simply a tool – it is a digital society or maybe even civilization.
There is not right or wrong for either cyberoptimism or cyberpessimism – we are both how people react to our “cyber-benefit” or “cyber-freedom” in the digital society. In the flat world where everyone has equal right to access information, more talents are found and their products, including technology, turn out of human expectation, or control. There is no end point for the development, so is for human demands.
In my humble opinion, it is better to survive with the tornado. People are scared of surveillance which might lead to illegally selling private information without permission. To deal with the issue, what about us creating cyber-examiners to avoid any probable crimes? Our worries of being taken over by robots has been illustrated by a lot of science-fiction movies. That might be because we have been pleased by the online service and become dull. The more we earn from the digital society, the more we challenge ourselves to survive or to bloom beautifully in this world. We are grateful of digital society because of our freedom but we need to bare the fact that freedom is only worth itself with acceptable actions, whether in real lives or social media. Therefore, there is a need of e-civilization, simply to name it. That would be the digital society which government and citizens both take active roles in protecting and nurturing. That would be the ideal world that even via screens, people are not anonymous or pseudonymous for their good or bad sides. I know, that’s a long walk to the destination that even me myself cannot imagine, but it’s a beautiful wealthy life. After all, what we drive for is the society of goodness, equality, and freedom, which should exist in both worlds of that freedom door.
Hien Phan 