Have you ever seen anyone online 24/7?

Have you ever come to an area where people keep scrolling on their phone without talking to each other?

Have you ever texted multiple people at a time?

Most of responses are “Yes” to three questions above about mobile phone – one of the four crucial technology evolutions. A number of significant changes take place as a result of mobile communication. More social issues on mobile phones arise: privacy of mobile phone users, the operation of business, relationship of family members and friends, and the social status and power. Mobile phone is a useful tool that transform our society gradually yet from its core.

Back to the old day in 1990s, when mobile phone was spread for a wider consumer market, it was first preferred as accessories of celebrities and successful business people. However, in this modern world, it would be strange if one does not have a mobile phone – a standard means of communication regardless of one’s physical location.

Mobile phone is more than simply internet connection via portable device. It is an amazing tool in which people can multitask – texting, taking photos, noting a to-do list, or listening to music – any offline activities than can be done on computer or laptop but in a handy version. How cool! Obviously, such offline efficiency would not be enough for a mobile phone to be an agent of social change. People from the old days were afraid of using mobile phone to text others because the fee was high. Nowadays, any conversation can be done online, not only text but also images, recordings, or videos. Multiple apps were designed mainly for mobile use such as Snapchat or Instagram so that people can update and share their status almost anywhere anytime. With mobile phone, the barrier in physical location is not as important.

When it comes to the conditions of interaction, people can be in constant touch with each other, no matter where they happen to be located at a particular moment.

Simon Lindgren

Mobile phone is so handy that people can use it anywhere and anytime, putting the world into their pocket easily. Several people would still connect to their social network even when on bed. The hyperconnectivity reforms the way how one is connected to each other, to the world, and the huge library of constantly updated information. The existence of mobile phone seems to be quite natural to the users that the arrival of texts or calls might be an interruptions of the real conversations that take place at a time. When mobile phone is embedded on one’s life, it might disconnect one from the real world, which sometimes is considered impolite or disrespectful. Therefore, there are several policies in public area in terms of mobile phone usage. For example, in a conference, attendees are asked to keep their phones in silent mode.

In any conversation or problems, people can look up on the internet via mobile phone for answers or solutions. Obviously, it is such a quick, efficient search query. Ideas and decisions of the group can be gathered online. A lot of people work remotely and communicate via texts mainly. As researcher Rich and Birgitte Yttri has discussed the use of mobile phone – making everything run smoothly. A tiny update of late arrival, symbolic gift such as gif or gossip stories could be an efficient social bond.There is a survey, claiming that people prefer to text, share, or send images, videos rather than phoning. They feel that their friends are not as closed to phone but they can throw some ideas collected from the internet to show connectivity yet in silence. Mobile phone can be anyone’s favorite private space – a comfort zone in feelings, thoughts, and emotions.

In comparison to the old days when not everyone owns a mobile phone, communications need more effort to build and maintain. People need to meet to transform ideas efficiently since there are no supporting tools in communicating and sharing ideas from external sources. Therefore, people from the similar physical location and habit schedule are more likely to meet and get along with each other. People were not likely to be interrupted or distracted from the conversation unless others physically pulled one away.

In today’s world, people do not necessarily have to meet for communications but they are rarely alone. They get connected to the world via any kind of technology device, especially mobile phone. Mobile phone is a practically efficient tool but its effects in reality depend on human use and culture. It seems to be a door for teleport and distant interaction; however, it might loosen the connection of one from different generations if people break the manners or etiquette when using mobile phones.

Here is the video to vividly show how the use of mobile phone transforms our daily behavior and relationship.

Social movement is a group action in reaction to a dominant power in the society. They can be large groups of people or organizations that focus on social issues, demanding a social change from the bottom. As in any organization of any time, communication is among important keys of social movement in exchanging information, orienting directions in operating, and nurturing the spirit. In the digital time, modern social movements are evolved from the energy of the crowd, thanks to technology development, they do work differently from those in the history.

In the history, there are several prominent social movements – workers’ rights movement, the environmental movement, peace movements, and women’s movements. In today’s world, a new wave of social movements arrived that has become more powerful than the previous ones. In the past, in order to spread the words and the fire, activists had to gather members in the social movement in a specific place and time, sometimes even in secrecy. Nowadays, via internet and social media, anyone can get involved in the ad-hoc network, in which individual devices communicating with each other directly. Communication becomes more flexible yet not as tight as the commitment in the past and reaches more people from all over the world.

Social movement in the digital world might not be as obviously influential as those in the history yet it smolders through daily online activities. Various networked social movements can take place at the same time in any digital personalized conversation, without officially launching campaigns. Participants can be anyone online, having common counteractions towards the dominant power – ignoring political parties, distrusting the mainstream media, and largely rejecting formal organization. On the internet, people have freedom to speak it out loud via various forms: political debate as written discussion or videos or entertainment as memes or gifs. They are transmitted via multimodal forms – the “global hypertext” content that includes networked text, images, videos and relationships.

Any social movement would eventually needs human direct interaction to boost the effectiveness and bring life to demanded changes. Before that, the public have the taste of the social movements when they threaded through online activities, sometimes without much notice about it. In contrary, with those in the past, they demand strict commitment, formal membership, and the practice of full ideologies that sometimes, people might be hesitant to jump right in. With connective actions in the digital world, personal action frames are used as a perspective of personal freedom and independence from formal organizations. Connective action is such an elastic bonding of individuals in which core dynamics of the action is carried throughout the digital groups. It is such a wise strategy in that participants are co-producers and co-distributors of ideas. There are neither leaders nor chains of responsibility in involvement. Therefore,

Such movements are highly empowered from the start, because they already live in the hearts and minds of the participants, who now also connect in large-scale networks.

Simon Lindgren

On the other hand, social movement in the digital society operates on the foundation of codes and protocols. Keywords and hashtags are used widely to spread ideas effortlessly to the crows that governments and businesses might have no difficulty in tracing the movements of activists, censoring, blocking, or even shutting down internet services. There came tactical media – a successful movement as to disturb the protocol, which is interesting to say that social movements rely on the internet and now to develop more, it had better have a trick on their supporters.

Since the arrival of Internet, human society was elevated into another level of equality. People access Internet’s massive amount of data for social networking, updating news, or even online learning. However, any human product is a self-reflection of the society, especially when Internet and social media is the user-interactive platform that adapt to the interest and personality of users.

When we think of shopping, the main target would be women, instead of men. When we think of politics, the representatives are usually men. Asian are assumed to be good at Maths while the West are known with wild, creative arts. When Internet is a huge, accessible library, we would want to learn and practice more on what we are interested in the real life. Men are known for gaming while women tend to browse for cooking recipes. There are definitely exceptions that people from different genders, and races exchange their habits and interests, especially when anyone can access the same amount of information.

However, social hierarchies tend to be reversed in the social media – the mainly entertaining platform that the majority of users enjoy in the digital society. Celebrities could have millions of views on the YouTube by simply sharing what outfits they have for a day or by reviewing technology devices. On the other hand, politics are not in the majorities’ interests even when the news are post on either online articles or YouTube short videos. Whoever know the orientation of their target audience and manage to satisfy those demands in entertainment, they would become popular and have power on the Internet. In the past few years, YouTube is not only for sharing videos with pure joy and interest, it is elevated to the point that people can combine labour and play. Jobs such as “content creators” or “influencers” attract a lot attention from viewers, motivating the ones being influenced to become influencers. What a passage of power that may not be done rapidly in the real life.

Obviously, steoreotype does exist in the digital society, which is named cybertype, even when people have less face-to-face communication. They are the results from our stereotypes in the real world and also the reinforcement of advanced technology. For example, AI collects data of users and reframes the interface to meet their personal orientations. Online users may share the same interest in shopping but would be framed more specifically into the types of products or news that meet their personalities more. Stereotypes in the real world may be degraded in the digital society and transformed into new kinds of cybertypes on the internet. That is how we process the awareness of the world and automatically group them for time-efficient perception.

To sum up, internet is definitely not the place where bias do not exist – there is an relationship between genders, races, power, and other aspects on the Internet. In the digital world. people have more freedom and become more friendly to each other but typing others is a part of how any of us perceive the world. Via internet, we have more chances to know more about differences from us and become either more generous or harsher with others.

The public sphere is a social realm that channels civil society. The two criteria to describe the public sphere is the accessibility and participants’ ability to confer unrestrictedly.

Sociologist and critical theorist Jurgen Habermas (1989)

According to Habermas, there are two spheres: private and public. Along with the rise of capitalism, starting in England in the 1700s, there was a high demand in “rational-critical debate” – people came to salons and coffee-house to discuss news, culture transforms, and so on. Since then, almost everyone, however their social status is, has an opportunity to express their personal thought although not as freely as to be considered a public person. Habermas stated the emerging bourgeois public sphere as “an arena mixing the two sides of private and public”.

In the modern digital society, internet or, to be more specific, social media seems to be cybersalons – a playground for anyone to share their thoughts and have chances to bring social issues on the table for more public discussions. Then, a question comes up: do the internet and social media constitute a new public sphere?

As a functioning public sphere that contributes to the development of civilization, people in the inclusive areas must have the ability to think out loud, as a signal of democratic devotion. However, neither bourgeois public sphere back to the old days nor social media in the modern time really meets the requirement of an effective public sphere. Although social media blurs the boundaries between the public and the private, not every online users share their thoughts on the modern social platform. Some users just visit social media as to observe others’ daily activities, update news, or keep up with their relationships via personal conversations. They even do not care much to upload their avatar, let alone discussing social issues. Despite the fact that everyone has an equal right in raising their voices for social contribution, either in real life or social media, not every of us really use it effectively.

MoreoveMorr, even active online users do not really bring political issues to social media platform. In reality, according to the Christian Fuchs’s survey on Twitter, very little political discussion were found going on this popular cybersalon. Instead, social media is for sharing personalities and looking for the interaction from the audience that share the similarities. The platform is colonized by entertainment, media, and advertising to keep itself vigorously interesting and popular to the mass audience. He said social media might belong to the category that Habermas mentioned in 1989 “pseudo-public spheres”.

Pseudo-public sphere is a form of public sphere that is hollowed out and rendered powerless by mass media and culture consumption.

Habermas (1989:162)

Internet is highly accessible but would it be the digital society where every person in the world would become digital citizen? Definitely not or not yet– in 2016, the internet penetration rate was about 90 percent in North America and Western Europe while only 25 percent in Africa and South Asia. On the other hand, although social media is a more interactive platform than television or newspaper, the mass audience still prefer to consume contents rather than engagement and contribution.

More seriously, social media is potential to the destructive crowd effect or, in other words, cyber-bullying. The mass audience do not prefer to start to conversation but they may not hesitant to slightly interact with other’s online speech by leaving comments. They may feel safe when thinking that “Oh, my comment is just one among thousand or million. No one would really cares.” However, once a comment was paid proper attention to become the big storm of negative response, it may overkill the one who has freely or bravely raised their voice in the care of society.

In conclusion, is social media a public sphere? Maybe not yet. There is a need for equal accessibility and the track of speech freedom and public respect as rights of digital citizenship.

Internet connection has been continuously improved to assist our life in any aspect: loading information, connecting with people, entertaining, and so on. It marked the remarkable shift in civil revolution, placing various useful “gadgets” into the society that quite a few people would say that they could not survive a day without the internet connection. However magical the internet has been to us, via the internet that the hatred is spread faster than ever before, pushing several internet surfers into stress, endangered life, and even suicide.

Sulli, a 25-year-old Korean idol, was found dead in her own house – suicide suspected. Before that, she has suffered from years of depression because of negative comments from other internet users on her social media accounts. She once said no matter what she had tried to achieve, she felt like the only feeling people could throw at her was hatred.

Zoe Quinn, the creator of the game DepressionQuest, was aggressively accused by her ex-boyfriend on the blog of having cheated on him for her own benefit. The hashtag #Gamergate was used throughout various social media platform, spreading the accusation further. Other female game creators and journalists were targeted as well – they were threatened to rape or even death.

Internet is the powerful third-party in any services that people do not have to reveal or confirm their identity to utilize. Of course, if the hacker or the government want to know who they are, they can be identified but normally, other internet users do not have time to do that unless it benefits themselves. Therefore, in the dark, without much attention from others, they have more freedom in expressing themselves, even their bad side in harsh, offensive words. Especially when a lot of third-parties are operated on the Internet such as News, YouTube, or Facebook, their profile information doesn’t have to be exact. Then, who would be willing to be responsible for their own comments?

Via social media, people do not need to communicate face-to-face. They do not catch the signal via others’ body language or facial expression as in physical meeting so messages and comments are sometimes misunderstood. Even a joke on the internet can be implied as a negative feedback that seriously has an impact on the mental health of feedback receivers. Social media is the platform where users can update any moment of life thanks to instant editing tool and sharing tool. It seems like people know more about others’ lives via social media so as to empathize with others’ feeling and thoughts but the more we know more about others, we judge others more and desire the similarity between ourselves and others. Social media is the playground where anyone can share their personalities but it can also be the battle of confronting characteristics. When we do not accept the difference, we have no difficulty in expressing the disapproval through “hate comments”, without thinking much of the consequence in the online world. Since we do not see the impact of our words on others, we think that it does not hurt at all until one day, such impact is like a cancer disease, killing others cruelly.

Everything on social media would possibly brought to the extreme point, especially with the existence of anonymous crowd. The crowd effect in the real life is so powerful that it can either elevate or destroy one – on social media, the speed and intensity of the crowd’s impact reaches the peak. Once the flame starts, no one can really tell when and how it will end.

A flame is not a flame until someone calls it a flame.

The communication researcher Philip Thompsen (1996:302)

In real life, even the mob can be traced and located nationally and more seriously as internationally but on the internet, people from another half of the globe can join in the conversation of any scale. There is no organization to keep track of the potentially cyber-bullying so the flames or virus would spread freely. When the flame just occurs in one’s personal life, however destructive it is, possibly no government or organization knows and takes action unless that person is willing to speak out loud, bravely go against it and ask for help.

Nowadays, also thanks to the spread of internet, people’s awareness of the impact of negative comments and cyber-bullying is raised efficiently, but definitely not thoroughly. Governmental website was founded to help prevent the social issue https://www.stopbullying.gov/. However,

Heavy is The Head That Wears The Crown

When we use social media, it is better for us to be taught how to deal with possible reactions and problems via the internet. When the flame bursts out, it’s not fare to solely blame on the anonymous hate comments – we need to ask ourselves what we have done and if the online hatred is worth worrying about. The more we risk expressing ourselves on social media, obviously the more unpredictable comments would come and the more flexible we need to become to face them. While we are waiting for others to stop bullying or the government to prosecute ones, online users had better stay tuned!

Internet, or social media to be more specific, marks the extraordinary shift in our means of communication. Besides the demand in updating news via broadcast on TVs or radios, we do want to share our thoughts and to be listened, during which we feel respected. When Facebook stepped into our society, it became a popular social network where anyone can have an online profile and share their daily activities or thoughts. Attaching photos in HTML was such a breakthrough of the internet at that time, which is amazing for vividly updating one’s memorable moment of life. Now that technology is developed more than just images for sharing, videos of affinity becomes everyone’s favor in any social media platform.

Social media is the playground of personas. Because stories are shared in various ways (photos, status, blogs, and videos), their interests are shared in the hope for interaction and discovery their mix and match. Online communications obviously create the bonding among readers and creators, the feeling of which is called affinity.

A feeling of connection, as stated, is an openness to interacting with another person. Affinity is achieved through activities of social bonding in which people come to feel connected with one another, readying them for further communication.

Bonnie Nardi (2005:99)

Videos of affinity, by means of YouTube platform, are stories to be shared in unlimited categories (nationality, ethnicity, class, gender, and disability). They aim to maintain the connection with potential YouTube surfers who share the similarities in the content mentioned on videos. Videos of affinity functions like short stories – capturing the moment of presence yet implying lifestyle of the recorder. In that sense, the video is meant to record one’s continuous life, to maintain to connection with others, and to even create a group of like-mindedness.

Instead of broadcasting, videos of affinity is a narrow-casting that requires a loyal, developing group of people to maintain and nurture the channel. For the sake of efficiency in absorbing information or entertainment, videos of affinity might be more favorable than other platforms of sharing stories in life. Audiences can multitask while watching videos, such as eating or taking a bath. The inter-influence of creators and viewers on each other is also more remarkable on the basis of interaction via content, comments, and subscription. One can share any aspect of their lives via videos, even their ups and downs, or their random daily activities. Despite the lack of traditional form of content, video creators draw others’ attention with their interesting personality and uniqueness of lifestyle as well as content. Especially when YouTube is not simply a social media platform but also a business area where anyone can get paid for automatic ads and advertisements in contract, videos of affinity sometimes are not individual works but the project of a whole team. Again, this might go back to the issue of the anonymous or identified on Internet.

Simply to say, video of affinity is the online version of sharing stories to make friends and create the online network, via which the audience feel enclosed to. Those videos do not require experience in editing but basic tasks are necessary to keep the display clean so as to please viewers to some extent. The frequency and impact of interaction via videos of affinity is as high as others, especially when people can share their videos via Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat or even livestream tool in a lot of social media platform. Those could be vlog, memes, and so on:

In 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian explorer, discovered a sailing route to the Americas, connecting the Old World and the New World since then.

In 1986, Vietnam launched a commercial renewal campaign, encouraging the establishment of private businesses and foreign investment, decentralizing the government to stay opened to the international connection.

In the summer of 2019, a video of Amazon on fire became viral and was shared rapidly on social media to call for awareness and action to protect the gradually destroyed environment.

Today, in one touch or one click, people can talk to each other or even know what they like in the past few days.

Obviously, civilization grows with the increase in human interaction and connection, either directly or via the third parties. Now that social network revolution is associated with the breakthrough in communication via technology and the internet, the connection has become more efficient than ever before. In the demand of freedom, industrialism, along with the explosion of information, the term “network society” was created to describe the computer-mediated society.

A network society is a society whose social structure is made of networks powered by microeclectronics-based information and communication technologies.

Castells 2004:3

Thanks to the emergence of the network society that the networked individualism blooms or even explodes. Besides daily physical interactions with others, internet is also the main means of information exchange and effective remote communication. Internet is not simply a giant library where people have to come and briefly read through all the books to find what they can actually take a good use of – instead, it is a smart system including search tool or social media for us to effectively access necessary data and connect with online friends. This way, the collection of information that we gain from the digital society is individualized to match our need, habit, or even personality.

In networked individualism, each person sits at the centre of her or his own set of networks. Rather than being members of external entities such as a church or political organisation, networked individuals command their own unique and egocentric networks.

Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman (2012)

The digital society is characterized with two phrases -“network” and “individualism”. The network society reflects the large scale of a society which is established on the “globally interdependent networks of production, consumption, business, politics, and so on”. As long as there is an internet connection, there would be the information exchange to the rest of the world. News are updated and profiles on social media are viewed as for human basic demand – absorbing new information. However, one cannot have buffets for 3 meals a day, 365 days a year – the same to a surfer who counters a diverse source of information. He would limit the source to those matching his interests.

Internet is the connection point where people can share their similarities and befriend rapidly. Nonetheless, in cases, people could be friends but may barely know a thing of their friends. On social media, we have more freedom in thoughts, options, and actions that the commitment to the digital society is not as intense as in the reality, thus boosting privacy. The network society is a broad term that emphasizes the efficient human relation but may not cover the emergence of personal concentration.

One of the mechanisms for human development is the growth of higher-level demand, which follows the satisfaction of basic demands. Technology is doing so well in flexibly meeting the needs of individuals that the group-centric society shifts gradually to the network-centric society. The value and goal of a group or community is not as evaluated as that of performing personality or uniqueness. This brings up concerns that even in the networked society, people do not have the ability to empathize and comprehend others or unite with others as a whole. Big tech companies may have benefits in updating automatic, multi-functional technology, which puts us in the joy of being in our own shelves, but they may spoil the society in general as being disconnected to some extents.

At 8 o’clock in the morning, Rie set the post to be uploaded on social media at 5:30 in the afternoon when she thought that more people would surf more after their long days at work.

Mathew has not changed his avatar on Facebook for years, not many status or updates although his social life was fulfilled and energetic – to him, social media were not big issues. Some of his online followers did not know much about how interesting he was if they met him in the office.

A young college student, Mary, got inspired by several illustration artists on Instagram with thousands of followers. She looked back at her artworks and found them not amazing or professional at all. She tried imitating others’ style and jazzed them up with her personality. The number of her followers increased and job offers came as a summer rain to her.

D, a hacker, got a lot of money from “this job”. Faking others’ identities to spread the word of racism on Twitter is his hobby in the dark while back to the light, he was such a nice colleague to others.

On social media, people have more freedom and flexibility in expressing their identities to others. Without body language or voice tones, we use texts or media to let people know what we want them to know. We take an active role in shaping and framing ourselves in front of device screens instead of worrying about others’ eye-rolling or laughter. Of course, there are pluses and minuses of being relatively invisible or even anonymous on social media but in general, online users find it comfortable since they are bosses of themselves, at least on the platform that they can either choose to embrace for just a moment or 24/7.

Because of invisibility via digital communication, people tend to disclose themselves earlier in the “potential relationships” and “develop closeness faster than that in face-to-face offline relationship”. Although when meeting face-to-face, people interact with each other more thanks to the diverse source of information – conversation, voice tone, facial expression, and body language – those might be the barriers that we sometimes afraid to speak out loud. On screen, we might imagine others’ reactions to our stories but that also reflects our personalities or expectation. We can reasonably come up with excuses to stop chatting with those we don’t feel comfortable with while in real life, it is considered rude. Therefore, we take more risks sharing part of our lives, which even becomes a career path of so many influencers, YouTubers, or freelance designers.

Because of the invisibility of social media, online users share emotions more easily. They may not know the whole stories of others but they catch the sorrowful moment of their friends, empathize with others, and may even offer helps. A Facebook user who is not very active on social media still knows what happens to her friends via newsfeed, which might take her more effort and time just to update the news. Although she stays invisible, she is still taking an active role in absorbing information.

Being in the dark to observe others in light comforts most people, so does being anonymous on social media. People feel safe to speak out loud their abused childhood or to point out the evil in their lives without much fear when posting a status online. We have heard of a glossophobia – the fear of public speaking but we know that typing the stories on keyboard or mobile phone screen is such a pleasant feeling. The problem may not be solved – the evil may be still there – but our basic demands, including the ability to share and be shared with, are probably satisfied to some extent.

Even with power, bad guy remain bad or even worse. Now that in the darkness, everyone can become bad more easily. Their identities are not defined so there is no need to be responsible for everything they have done on social media. People text love icons to each other so effortlessly that they also commented harsh words to others restlessly. One can take advantage of other’s sharing on social media to steal their information, break into their house or kidnap their children. One can fake other’s account or personality on digital platform where they know no one would take time to confirm the information. The flood of information of online users, which is either shared on social media platform or collected via business system, could be their weakness that others can make benefit from.

Being identifiable or invisible depends on the lifestyle and decisions of web browsers. Social media enlarge the flexibility of the rate of information being exchanged, either providing ones with ultimate freedom or the depth of sin. Internet is not absolutely a nightmare or a paradise – what makes the e-society depends on how we interact with social media and technology