Connectedness and media perceptions

The researcher argues that connectedness means young people are intuitively drawn to multitasking when they are engaging in SNS, for example, updating Facebook status, texting, tweeting, skyping, checking out images/photos on Instagram, downloading videos/music, chatting with friends online or sending e-mails, all while listening to music and working on their school assignments. In the era prior to the Internet, our social awareness and knowledge were dependent on our accessibility and exposure to new life experiences and textual/printed materials. We consumed and internalised information at a less intense pace. We maintained connections with others by writing letters, sending greeting cards and making telephone calls. A new era – an information age of electronics and digitisation – began just over two decades ago. We cannot overlook or undervalue the extent of this change at a socio-cultural level. We need to explore the dynamics of information technology (IT)-enabled social networks to create a constructive dialogue among our young people, to understand how they connect with each other and the rest of the world, and how their methods of connection facilitate the exploration of their own presentation of self. One can speculate that new technology might limit the complexities of human communication, as it is focused on the visual and textual. Young people may focus too much on the visual and textual and neglect the auditory and verbal aspects of communication.

In Hamlet’s Blackberry: A practical philosophy for building a good life in the digital age, William Powers (2010) perceived that information overload was a far greater problem than when Alvin Toffler (1970) coined the term in Future Shock. Powers (2010) argued that we are living in the digital age, meaning that everything we do is now can have a digital aspect (e.g., even leisure activities), and expressed concerns relating to short attention spans and constant distraction similar to those mentioned earlier. For example, he argued that people have trouble concentrating for long periods of time and are easily

distracted, and that the “digital consciousness can’t tolerate three minutes of pure focus” (p.46). The behaviour Powers (2010) described seems appropriate to young people who are constantly connected with their devices; if they are disconnected, they find it difficult to stay focused on non-online activities such as sustained quiet reading or a manual task.

The speed at which young people connect through technology is definitely more immediate and faster than in the pre-Internet era, and their inability to disengage with technology also raises concerns in the adult world. Nicholas Carr (2010) expressed concerns that electronic devices are overworking the brain “like a high-speed data processing machine, a human HAL” (p. 16). Carr stated that he was losing his ability to perform deep reading, and becoming as shallow as the websites that he visited and browsed regularly:

When I’m online or not, my mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along on the surface like a guy on a jet ski. (pp. 6– 7)

Technology both brings people together and keeps them apart. At times, it seems people are so busy communicating online that they have less time for other types of direct engagement. Blyth (2008) lamented that as a society we might be losing the sophisticated communication medium of conversation due, in part, to digital technology. This could, in the future, lead to people having trouble in obtaining fulfilment and maintaining their individuality.

Young people are seduced by the colourful and energetic sensory interactivity that advanced digital technology can facilitate on a screen. It may be argued that screen culture is the pop culture of the 21st century but one operating in a totally artificially constructed environment – cyberspace (also known as the virtual world) – which is constantly in flux. The impacts of these unprecedented advances in technology on the social, economic, cultural and cognitive aspects of our lives mean it is not surprising that many adults and young people are overwhelmed by unlimited access to online information that can be unreliable and potentially very confusing. This connectedness presents new challenges

for young people who are constructing their own conceptual frameworks of the world they are living in and seeking to make informed choices. Davidson (2011) asserted that young people were constrained by the threat of strangers. This changed the way children socialised with their peers, deterring parents from allowing them to play with friends outside, wander in public places or hang out with their peers without supervision. The connectedness of SNSs offers children a new playground in which to explore away from adults and learn from their peers.

This new connectedness undoubtedly offers a place for experimentation, such as negotiating identity or presenting one’s self as an outlet for escapism. For others, it has become the infrastructure that facilitates and promotes artistic refinement, or a strategic advantage in economic competition to be constantly monitored and sustained in the pursuit of prosperity and efficiency. Cheng (2008) described the advancement in technological infrastructure as a major means of facilitating and sustaining an aesthetically and culturally vibrant society, and as a significant element in developing creative excellence in Singapore. According to Cheng (2008), the use of technology that was introduced into Singapore’s secondary school visual arts syllabus was a significant factor. Whether the desired outcome of creativity in students’ artistic representations has been achieved, and how the technological environment has contributed to the development of the students’ identities, remain unexplored and undocumented.

Notwithstanding the many advantages of this greater connectedness, there remains concern on the part of parents and the media about the potential exploitation of young people online. Boyd and Ellison (2008), citing earlier research including Wolak, Mitchell, and Finkelhor (2006) and Lenhart and Madden (2007), argued that concerns about the inappropriate conduct and exploitation of minors online were vastly over-amplified. The National School Boards Association of the United States (2007) found that only 0.08 per cent of students had met someone following an online encounter without permission from a parent (as cited in Boyd & Ellison, 2008). However, media portrayals of SNSs still often describe them as dangerous or risky places where young people can become vulnerable to predators, or raise issues concerning unsupervised or excessive social media consumption, addiction or ready access to inappropriate content, and potential exposure

to violence. Plate 1.1 presents a snapshot of the media’s perceptions of young people (Generation Z).

Source: Refer to Appendix C

Plate 1.1 Snapshot of media perceptions of adolescents and social media

Nevertheless, adolescents show a healthy degree of scepticism about SNSs and online information. Research by Kalmus (2007) explored Estonian adolescents’ attitudes towards the Internet and found that only 40 per cent trusted the information they found online. Parents, teachers and television were their preferred sources of “truth”.

Viviek Wadhwa (2011), in his article “Social media: Is it the end or start of a golden age?” argued that the Internet is not harming our children and that technology will better connect people with each other. He acknowledged that the Internet and social media can make life more complex, but asserted that it is valuable for assessing new sources of information, obtaining knowledge, and for connectivity with family and the global community:

I get far too many e-mails and have to respond to hundreds of messages on Twitter and Facebook. Still, these tools have opened new worlds. They offer new sources of information, expand my thinking, and connect me to millions of people worldwide. They have allowed me to make a greater impact that was imaginable even a decade ago. And I can reach my family from anywhere at any time. I love

the photos and videos they send. These have helped my spiritual evolution, not hindered it. (Wadhwa, 2011, para. 2)