Using social media

Using social media

By: Dr Mohammad Akram Nadwi
Oxford

The actual function (not the declared purpose) of all modern media (print media, radio, tv, the film industry and the new so-called social media) is to connect those who want to sell something with potential buyers, in other words, modern media are a vehicle for the transfer of marketable information about consumers and products. Social media are the most dangerous because of the sheer volume of the data that they can collect and control. The uses of this data may or may not be strictly commercial. For example, the ability to track an individuals moods and movements (for example, a person may send an email explaining that he cannot attend a meeting because he had bad headache; then he goes on line and buys a certain medication; while that medication is being prepared he listens to a particular piece of music on line and at the same time reads from a particular magazine, and so on) by itself is not valuable information but a repeated patter of such mood and movement over millions of individuals enable the controller of this information to predict behaviour. If you know what people of a certain age do when they are in a low mood you can target the advertising of other products which, in that mood, the person may buy. Since party political policies are also mediated by this mood, party managers can predict when and what type of message to send out to a particular group, young, old, male, female, rich and poor. In sum the functioning of social media is dangerous because it is a form of invisible, anonymous control of thoughts feelings.

What about the declared purpose of social media – entertainment, communication between like minded people, information (practical, like train times; scholarly discussions and other theoretical advice and knowledge)? In this area, it is in principle possible for people with sufficient self-awareness and self-discipline to exercise control over their use of social media devices. However, because such discipline undermines the actual function of social media, the service providers have introduced many devices to ensure that the habits of discipline are disrupted. Among these devices are closed feedbacks among groups of users or across a group of website enabling short comments and comments on comments, the shortest form of which is Like or Dislike, Subscribe or Not, Notify or Not. By these means the service providers are able to exploit the human weakness (greatest among adolescents) wanting/needing to know who has responded positively, who has Followed. The need for approval and recognition if met is addictive, if not met it is destructive, producing intense stress and anxiety.

All in all, what we do with social media? Well, the main problem we face is that we can’t escape it because almost all public services (local and national government, health, education, etc.) are mediated through same social media, to the extent that very elderly people are deprived of these public services because they do not know how to use the modern devices proficiently. Whether we like it or not, information about our likes and dislikes, our moods and movements, who we talk to and when, is available through service providers to government agencies and sellers of products and policies. So, what can we do? We can be vigilant and disciplined about when, how and why we use social media. Just as a disciplined person first reflects on what he needs and what his priorities are before he goes shopping, and therefore when he returns from shopping he only finds in his basket what he needed to buy, and not any other things which were laid out to tempt and distract him. In the same way it is possible to reflect on your need at any particular movement to use social media. Only if your self-discipline is strong enough will you be able to escape the power of the service providers. The vast majority of human beings for the vast majority of their time do not exercise such discipline. Instead, they convince themselves that what they are doing is not harmful and in any case it is unavoidable, and beside everybody is doing.

The second line of defence and most necessary, assuming you have a wish to preserve your human dignity and the privacy of your inner life and your intimate life, you can try not to do any thing or say any thing beyond what is functionally necessary to conduct a particular transaction. In other words, do not put out information about yourself, your feelings and your associations, or your likes and dislikes, on social media. Keep what is personal and private, personal and private, and restrict it to conventional media – face to face meetings (not screen image to screen image), letters and documents which have a tangible, physical reality.

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