Communications Technology

 

Communication Technology Essay:

Introduction:

In this essay I will be discussing; the current and relevant issues involved in the use of technology for communication (CT), the impacts of social media and CT on peoples’ personal and professional lives, some of social media’s advantages and disadvantages, and what legislations there are covering CT.

Private life: How much we use it, What we put online & Mental Health

CT and social media have become so prevalent in people’s private lives, sometimes it feels like they’ve always been there. For anyone born after 1995, that really is the case. Gen Z are the first generation to not know a world without the internet, and they use it the most “Immersed in the online world since birth, Gen Z surpasses Millennials in daily activity on social media with 2 hours 55 minutes spent per day.” (Viens, 2019) Is this immersion in the virtual world a good thing?

Nowadays, everything you put online or anything that has been put online about you, is there forever, “just because you can no longer find it using Google, doesn't mean it's not there” (Gale, 2015) Which is a harrowing thought... or is it? The fact that you can find information about anyone that’s ever been online, is not necessarily a bad thing. Being able to find old friends, or family, anywhere in the world, can only really bring us closer together. Which in this pandemic-era is more important than ever, “Ancestry.com, which helps people discover and connect with living relatives through DNA matching and family history research, reports a 37 percent increase in subscribers since the pandemic began” (Davis, 2020)

A person’s internet presence is really a glimpse of their life, who they are/were. Or at least, who they want the world to think they are, and they can get instant gratification and validation for by posting online. However, another problem with social media is that people only tend to post the ‘perfect’ version of themselves, and their lives. Many apps have filters for photographs, including face-editing features, you can effectively make your face look the way you wish it looked. This can lead to mental health issues, like body dysmorphia, especially for teenagers. “Mental health experts are calling for body and face-editing apps to be age-restricted in order to better protect the mental and physical well-being of young people.” (news.sky.com, 2020)

Public Life: Advertising, Data Collection & Real-world Change

Social media advertising has allowed businesses to reach a much bigger pool of potential buyers than TV or radio ever could. The reason for this is that there are “3.5 billion smartphones” in the world (Oberlo, 2020) which is nearly half the world's population that can access the internet and social media. Through the algorithms that these platforms use, advertising companies can create targeted audiences “based on their demographics, interests, behaviours, and more.” (buffer.com, 2019).

Advertisers have access to a HUGE amount of users' information, because “free” apps like Facebook, sell this info to them. To paraphrase Tristan Harris, “Facebooks’ client is the advertiser, the product they sell is the user” (Orlowski, 2020). This information they have on any individual means they can slip ads into their feed, because their algorithm says this person will buy it. By tweaking what that individual sees on their feed, it manipulates them in very small ways, which can change that person’s real-world behavior.

However, the immediacy of social media, posting or even live-streaming something and other people having instant access to it, can have real-world effects too. When you think of the Black Lives Matter protests, they all started because of the filming of an unforgivable act that was live-streamed on social media. Then the protests started, and they were being organised, all over the world, through social media. These protests forced change “The social driven mobilisation of protesters has garnered some steps in notable positive change. Numerous closed cases have been reopened.” (Crean, 2020)

Developments in CT: 5G and Ethics

5G is one of the biggest advances in CT. 5G is the fifth-generation mobile network. It promises to deliver higher download speeds, have less lag (or low latency), be more reliable, increase a networks capacity, and reach more users. It will mean more information (or disinformation) being accessible to an even wider audience.

Throughout this internet age, there have been many people involved that thought they were doing something positive, only to realise that what they were really contributing to was, and still is, the exploitation of human psychology. As a result of this, there is now a big push from the IT community for regulations for Internet Ethics. The idea that advances in CT bring benefits to everyone using it, not just big, money making corporations “The majority of experts agree: with a new set of Internet ethics that lay down the guidelines for peaceful coexistence and guarantee the rights of digital citizens.” (iberdrola.com, 2020)

Legislation: GDPR & Health and Safety

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was brought in on the 25^th of May 2018, to supersede the previous Data Protection Acts. It gives citizens of the E.U. more control over what can happen with their data, like what can be stored, what it’s being used for and who can have access to it. For example, “If the controller intends to process your data for a purpose other than the purpose for which it was collected, the controller must provide you with information about this purpose before processing begins.” (citizensinformation.ie, 2018).

Health and Safety laws apply to any employer, employee or anyone who is self-employed. They are in place to protect the welfare of any individual while doing their respective job. The bit that specifically applies to CT is “Employers must take certain measures in regard to visual display units (VDUs), such as computer screens. These include checking the reflection and glare, the operator’s position in front of the VDU, and the keyboard and software used.” (citizensinformation.ie, 2020) It also states that adequate breaks must be given away from screens to protect the user’s eyesight, and interestingly should contribute to the cost of prescription glasses if needed.

Conclusion:

In this essay I discussed some pros and cons of CT in a person’s private life, how much we use it, what stays online, and mental health issues. I discussed some negative and positive aspects of CT in public life, advertising, data collection, and real-world change.  I put forth 2 developments in CT. I briefly covered the legislation in regard to CT.

Ultimately, how social media and CT makes us feel and act is down to how we use it “Increasing our media literacy, raising awareness of how we use social media and how it operates, and curating our feeds around positive content are all strategies we can use to protect our mental well-being" (Prendergast, 2020). Education on how corporations collect our data and influence us, how addictive social media can be, how to mitigate the effects of that addiction, and how to use technology wisely, is vital. What content we consume from social media needs to be rounded, so as not to end up in an echo chamber. Just like the real world, there needs to be different opinions viewed and considered.

What we post online may be there forever, for future generations to see, so being selective about what we post about ourselves is important. As Sir Terry Pratchett wrote “No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away” (Pratchett, 1991) so, thanks to CT and the internet, our virtual selves may live on forever, and that’s a nice thought.

 

References:

·         (Viens, Ashley, 2019) This graph tells us who's using social media the most https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/social-media-use-by-generation/

·         (Gale, Andee, 2015) How long does your information stay on the Internet?  http://www.digitalresources.nz/article/5yoLEjc

·         (Davis, Lisa Selin, 2020) Pandemic sparks more people to hunt for their birthparents, long lost relatives - https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-search-for-birthparents/2020/09/18/def0a132-e7c9-11ea-97e0-94d2e46e759b_story.html

·         (news.sky.com, 2020) Photo-editing apps: Teen says addiction to selfies led him to develop body dysmorphia - https://news.sky.com/story/photo-editing-apps-teen-says-addiction-to-selfies-led-him-to-develop-body-dysmorphia-12085337

·         (oberlo.com, 2020) HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE SMARTPHONES IN 2020? https://ie.oberlo.com/statistics/how-many-people-have-smartphones#:~:text=Latest%20figures%20show%20an%20increasing,rate%20is%20at%2045.4%20percent.

·         (buffer.com, 2019) What is Social Media Marketing? https://buffer.com/social-media-marketing#:~:text=Advertising,-When%20you%20have&text=Social%20media%20ads%20allow%20you,interests%2C%20behaviors%2C%20and%20more.

·         (Orlowski, Jeff, 2020) (dir.) (2020) The Social Dilemma (Netflix) https://www.netflix.com/ie/

·         (Crean, Katherine, 2020) The importance of social media in instigating social change https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2020/06/19/the-importance-social-media-instigating-social-change

·         (iberdrola.com, 2020) Internet Ethics: a key part of the digital future https://www.iberdrola.com/social-commitment/digital-ethics

·         (citizensinformation.ie, 2018) Your rights under the GDPR https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/government_in_ireland/data_protection/rights_under_general_data_protection_regulation.html

·         (citizensinformation.ie, 2020) Health and safety at work  https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/health_and_safety/health_safety_work.html

·         (Prendergast, Clementine, 2020) ‘The Social Dilemma’: Are Facebook and Instagram Really Affecting Our Mental Health? - https://www.vogue.com/article/the-social-dilemma-impacts-of-social-media

·         Pratchett, T (1991) Reaper Man. England, Victor Gollancz