Nature has blessed all forms of life with different levels of ingenuity to survive, to construct and even to entertain. We see birds weaving nests for shelter, an ant carrying weight heavier than its body mass, bees constructing uniformed hexagonal pits in making hives but the epitome of all this is the ingenuity of human beings. The construction of pyramids, colosseum and huge monuments across all continents, done without todays' physical science and earth moving equipment are some of the best outcomes of human ingenuity demonstrated during ancient empires. In the 20th century the creativity of humans managed to land Man on the Moon and in the 21st century Man managed to bring rock samples from Mars to the Earth. Man's ingenuity created the Internet, which works with two numerical figures, 0 and 1 without the need of any earth moving equipment or the sweat and tears of labourers. It is the work of the human mind. Is there more to come; only time will tell.
Miracle of 0 & 1 Computer was created to conduct complex calculations and has its origin in the 1950s in the UK. The researchers then had the idea of breaking complex calculations into smaller packets and then connecting the computers to get results quickly, thus giving birth to the idea of the Internet. After several stages of evolution, including its military application in the USA during the 1960 finally came its commercial application in the 1990s with the development of Word Wide Web in 1991. With this people welcomed the digital world into our homes and hearts with open minds. It is now a ubiquitous presence everywhere as the entire world is spinning around this marvel of 0 & 1. We celebrated connectivity, enjoyed its efficiencies and benefited from its business applications. But we never realised the fine prints that came with it. As we always tick 'I Agree' while opening a weblink we now may have reached an unknown territory within cyberspace leaving behind the real world, with our own will.
According to Newton's Law of motion, for every action there is an opposite reaction. While Newton applied this principle in the physical world it holds equally true in human's social world. The digital world has brought us together through communication but it has left us isolated in spirit with growing loneliness. The growth of social media in various forms has become our digital shackles monitoring our every activity and feeding endless texts, video and audios based on individualised algorithms. People scroll through the glowing screen and see a starving child in Sudan and think it is not here and move on to the next screen. Then we see houses being demolished with people inside in the West Bank and say it is not my house and move on. Again, people see civilians being killed in Gaza broadcast live in visual media, which the international community calls genocide and people say it not here and moves on for more feeds on the screen. Children are being forcibly starved and one would say they are not my children and scroll or the next screen. With such indifferent conduct of people, the people have graciously normalised genocide. What happened to human sensitivity? It is the insidious erosion of the most fundamental human value that is being slowly incinerated by society facilitated by social media with global connectivity. One might ask what is the value of life?
Is it a tranquiliser?
People are born with empty memory which is gradually filled with life's experiences based on upbringing, education, physical, social, political, religion, and psychosomatic experiences gained as people grow up throughout people's lifetimes. Every decision, every action people make are influenced by such experiences. But in recent years people's life experience seems to have gone into hibernation as people's decisions and actions seems to be based on just one aspect, Infocom-technology which has penetrated deep into human psyche. It is like a person on high dose of barbiturate making unaware of external world. Social media has created a comfortable individual bubble for everyone to immerse in his or her world trying to discover what it likes in the virtual world; it does not matter if it is a dancing monkey or a popular singer performing with a subconscious mind. Social media has implicitly hijacked our minds and spirit to pay attention to digital murmurs of strangers than to the voices of people sitting next to us. We are connected to a global network but disconnected from the reality of life and living. Social media has become a tranquiliser making our mind dumb to understand the reality of the world and numb to act on essential issues.
It is here to stay Children are learning to navigate bright screens in their mobile devices long before they are able to understand an emotional conversation with a next of kin. This stimulation of children with constant digital feed with entertaining clips and emojis may make them smart in navigating the internet but may be uncomfortable to face and express empathy as they grow up in a real world when needed. Perhaps, the most dangerous aspect of the social media bubble especially for children is the distortion of reality with enhanced visual and audio presentation of fiction indistinguishable from reality (even to the adults). It is especially deleterious with the invasion of AI. It will cause atrophy of social skills, promoted happily by the creator for profit. Few people have questioned but there are no answers or actions.
It is neither desirable nor feasible to avoid cyber technology but people must collectively reflect on how to tame social media. While we have benefitted from cyber technology including social media we have become a wilful victim of the media. People need to take control of technology rather than being shackled by technology and dictate our way of life. The 'free' digital platforms operate in making profit and their investment is our time which we voluntarily contribute, happily. Every video clip we scroll, every image we 'like' and every emoji which makes us smile on any digital platform are engineered meticulously to capture our time and divert our minds from the real world. It can keep our mind fully immersed in this virtual world with autoplay till eternity, until we decide to stop, but the human's curiosity will go for one more click with no end in sight.
At the societal level it is equally worse. Information in any form is the bond that brings people together, establishes friendship and develops relationships. Appropriate information spreads knowledge and brings peace but when weaponised it brings instability in individuals and nations. The information power exercised by elitists with the level of disinformation disseminated is gradually damaging the process of creating modern history, while also questioning authentic history. The media manipulation of key issues in the economy such as marketing malpractices or promoting undesirable behaviour in the media as fun is distorting the reality people live in. Over reliance on social media has reduced person to person interaction, impacting on quality of relationship including within families.
Possible way out? Digital media as such is not the problem. Digital media has become a prominent component of educational institutes and scientific laboratories. The problem is with unregulated social media which has invaded the hearts and minds of most users, especially children. The regulators have a role to play in regulating what should and should not be allowed. Several countries have introduced age restrictions in using social media. But implementing such legislation is impractical as what children do at home is beyond the reach of regulators. The responsibility is ultimately with the parents and for adults to self-regulate. The regulators must also look carefully on what should and should not be allowed in the media. The rights activists may groan about such restrictions as an attack on freedom of expression and censorship in support of the content creators, the profiteers. Children's lives and future is nonnegotiable no matter who groans. There are restrictions on human cloning. Should there be similar restrictions on mind bending technology such as to ban further works on the AI before it is too late?
Read more articles by Ramesh here.
Or contact Ramesh at ramesh.chauni@gmail.com
Labels: Ramesh
Ramesh, try to take away a mobile device from a child and you quickly have the emotional conversation that you say has gone missing.
ReplyDelete