Socmed is changing the way we communicate and the way we live our lives – both negatively and positively. — Bernama photo
TO start with, let me share some statistics with you on the dominance of the social media influence today. After that, you can get a general idea of how pervasive, intrusive and instructive (you may say destructive?) its overall effect that it has become in our daily lives as we know it.
There are dozens of platforms out there and the Top 7 of them that attract more than one billion active monthly users (as at Oct 27, 2023 – Statista.com) are as follows:
- Facebook: 3.03 billion;
- YouTube: 2.49 billion;
- WhatsApp: 2.0 billion;
- Instagram: 2.0 billion;
- WeChat: 1.33 billion;
- TikTok: 1.22 billion, and;
- FB Messenger: 1.04 billion.
In Malaysia alone, statistics as at the beginning of 2023 depicted us as the second-highest Internet-penetration country in Southeast Asia, at 94.5 per cent, with an estimated 89 per cent of us having access to mobile Internet through handphones – a total of 31.87 million of us are regular Internet users.
Of those using the Internet, 79 per cent (or 25.43 million Malaysians) are actively using Facebook on a daily basis. More of us are now fully dependent on our world and local news as well as our social interactions on Mark Zuckerberg’s creation, which he together with Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes had founded in 2004 when they were just students at Harvard University.
We also use Facebook for many of our daily routine stuff – we set up our own groups, pages and communities; we communicate with families and friends, as well as acquaintances and the Facebook world at large; we use it for social activities; and we look in it for the latest updates on the people, events and products that we are interested in.
Along the way, we are also intruded upon inevitably, our privacies are invaded and our identities sometimes stolen for ulterior and spurious purposes.
If one were to draw up that proverbial list of pros and cons and set it on our table and look at it very objectively, we would probably find that the pros of having a social media presence and our dependence on it would almost balance with the negative and evil deeds that could be perpetuated through it.
So what can we do about it? Other than to withdraw completely, delete our presence and simply stop using it all – Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube, TikTok and all that?
The problem is that many of us are already addicted to it.
Social media addiction is today’s society’s biggest problem.
Writer Saurabh Shama says ‘it is because our limbic system is craving for rewards, pleasure, acceptance and expansion through the mind’.
Bharat Nan goes one step further and likens it to ‘social media addiction being like suicide in daily instalments’.
It would seem that the more social media we have, the more we think we are connecting, yet we are really disconnecting from each other.
I remember that graphic cartoon that shows a family seated in their living room not talking to each other, but each being totally engrossed in their own device – even the toddlers were on their iPads watching cartoons on it!
Yet, there are as many positive influences and factors that have shown why socmed (the shortened form for social media) is the ultimate equaliser – it gives a voice and a platform to anyone willing to engage, and its power at times can force necessary change.
Socmed is also responsible for reducing social barriers, as it connects people on the strength of human values, not identities; although, it also makes some people scared to have strong opinions.
Socmed is also responsible for reducing social barriers, as it connects people on the strength of human values, not identities; although, it also makes some people scared to have strong opinions. — Bernama photo
On socmed, almost everyone lives the life of a celebrity; for many it’s a numbers game – the more friends and followers, the greater an influence is perceived.
It is changing the way we communicate and the way we live our lives – both negatively and positively. Every time you post a photo, or update your status, you are contributing to your own digital footprint and your own ‘personal brand’.
Kurt Seapoint gave an ominous warning when he said: “Sometimes evil is so well disguised on social media, it is easy to mistake intent for kindness.”
Let’s take it further and look at what socmed has been responsible for in recent times in our own country.
There is documented and widespread belief among political analysts that the millions of ringgits spent on political cyber-troopers by certain parties in Malaysia were responsible for ‘turning the tide’ from blue and red to the green-coloured flag of a particular party.
Their hundreds, if not thousands, of short video clips and WhatsApp chainmails were responsible for at least one certain age-group of new and young voters to vote their way.
This phenomenon is not new. It was used extensively and expensively in the past as well to render ‘cyber’ assistance to a number of top politicians for their own personal agenda whenever they had to resort to such salubrious and ill-intended purposes to either run down their enemies (personal or political) and also to promote their own ‘personal brands’.
Many writers and researchers have written volumes of books, online articles and spoken at independent political forums and platforms about some of these – no doubt they can never be stopped and as I write, they are still going on.
Once you have an individual with an evil intention or someone who wants to champion a cause, a person, or any pet project you can think of, the socmed platforms of Facebook and WhatsApp are now so easily available for him to use to his heart’s content.
Yes, there are Tik Tok and YouTube as well if he’s more creative with more time and resources at hand to create short video clips and do some basic editing.
There was a recent case of someone in the civil service who managed to get his hands on an internal memo exchanged between an external office and he had used his socmed presence on Facebook to ‘leak’ an illegally obtained scan of the memo, which he had personally perceived to be something negative and unacceptable to his own personal beliefs.
Within a very short time, that shared ‘illegal memo’ was reshared by many within his circle on socmed and it became the proverbial ‘mountain out of a molehill’.
The ill-intention from this devious act was a purely administrative issue, which would not have warranted the overkill reaction that he had hoped would (and it did) happen.
More level-headed professionals and the interested parties quickly intervened, met up and resolved it within a very short time. Everyone had agreed that it was not worth the fuss that it had created.
More often than not, when such devious acts of sabotage and ill-intended leakages and further propagation of trivial, minor and other small issues occur, it opens the door wide for those who are evil-minded and have axes to grind, political, racial and religious platforms to champion, as well as personal gains or simply the egotistic pleasure of spreading ill will, in order to wallow in other’s miseries or to cause disharmony and create bad will among peaceable people.
I liken this to the plopping of a small pebble into the still water of a pond, the ripples of which will travel some distance and might cause a water strider to skip a couple of beats, but it loses its strength once it hits the side of the pond.
For the person who threw that pebble, his only thrill was the soft sound of the plop.
The trouble with the socmed phenomenon today is sometimes it is not just a pebble, it can be a stone, or even one human throwing himself into that pond – then it becomes a bigger splash and makes many more ripples.
Excess water too can splash over the sides and create further havoc.
Elon Musk said: “I think there should be regulations on social media to the degree that it negatively affects the public good.”
Our Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission was set up to regulate and enforce all matters pertaining to social media and beyond and hopefully, with its guidance and experience gained in recent years, it would be able and capable to ensure that the long road ahead would be safe for us all as users of social media in all the platforms that are available here.
In the meantime, my personal advice would be to stay safe on the Internet.
Never share your personal details unless warranted and needed, and most of all, be very aware of the many ‘clickbaits’ (those pop-up adverts and sensational sounding headlines) out there.
If unsure, just don’t click on anything!
Happy surfing – on the web!