One of the many problems faced by our generation is the one which is being created by social media. Social media websites has managed to become an intrinsic component of our day to day lives. People spend a substantial time on these websites and applications. Even though spending much time on social media, is itself problematic, which may lead to precarious psychological complications, but the problem which I think is more menacing than others is the way social media is limiting the spectrum of knowledge for its users.
Social media doyens viz. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter affirmed time and again that they are endeavouring to create a better world for all, a world where the information will flow seamlessly, and people were naive enough to believe them. Social media websites which were created with a business perception, and with a vision to connect people with each other, are gradually turning into the sources of information. As per the Pew research centre, as many as 68% of young adults get some sort of news through social media, out which 20% often use social media as news source. The given data only talks about news, and not about the information we come across on social media.
The problem here is not that the current generation is using social media as their source of information, but the way these social media companies operate. The AI algorithm that works from behind, is used to engage users as much as possible, and to make them spend as much time as possible on these websites and apps. What that this AI algorithm does is that, in order to engage a user, it uses his/her data to decide what that individual user will see and what s/he will not, and this interruption done by this AI algorithm, creates the phenomenon which is called as the phenomenon of alternative pictures of the same reality.
Before we carry on discussing the way social media creates this phenomenon, let's understand it first, with a lucid example. Why does Mr. A believe in a particular religion or god? Did it happen that when Mr. A grew up, he chose it? No, He grew up believing in it, and the reason is that he saw each and everyone from his family and relatives believing in the same myths. Father, mother, uncle, aunt, and so on and so forth, they all were the alternative pictures, but the reality remained the same, which was to believe in a particular religion. When he grew up, he saw these alternative pictures portraying a single myth, and he embraced it too, because so many people can't be wrong, until and unless Mr. A think and contemplate about it, which happens rarely.
Anyway, coming back to the main topic, social media creates this phenomenon in a very smart way. Let's start from YouTube, which is a video streaming social media service. If you don't remember your first homepage on YouTube, no matter, but just go through it, as it is today, and you find hardly anything which you hate to watch, and it is done by that AI algorithm which I had talked about earlier. It learns from your user experience, and recommends you only those contents which you have watched or searched earlier. If you watch Prime Time with Ravish Kumar, you are never gonna see DNA by Sudheer Chaudhary, but instead P.P. Vajpayee or NewsClickIn will be waiting for you to be watched next. If you watch Aakash Banerjee, and go with the flow of YouTube recommendations, you will end up watching Dhruv Rathee. If you watch English songs, then a bhojpuri song will never appear in your recommendation. The same goes for others like Facebook and Instagram. If you follow the first one, the second one recommended will be similar to that first.
Although prima facie this AI algorithm is making things easy for us , but the fact is that it is making things more and more complicated, as it is leading our generation to a more dangerous destination and precarious situation.
This era in which our current generation is living is called to be the era of the flow of information, and it implies that the era preceding it, was characterised by the concentration of information, but one the other hand, that era was also marked by diverse and wide spectrum of information and also the sources which were most of the time reliable and authentic. A person who reads a newspaper will see there various kinds of information, for instance; there will be a report against the lack of transparency of governance, and on the other page, you may see another report about the progress in human development index in the last decade. If you are reading a book, you will find many arguments around a specific topic. The diversity of information we come across while reading a book or flipping the pages of a daily newspaper, neither lets you fall prey to any specific ideology or a blind folded follower of a particular political party, nor lets you develop a hostile attitude towards it. You have a diverse range of information, which lets you create a balanced attitude, which is also a characteristic of an aware citizen who participates in the democratic process with an equilibrated corpus of information.
But this process of information dissemination doesn’t happen in case of social media. The wide spectrum of information, you come across, while flipping through the pages of a book or a newspaper, is being limited by AI algorithm of social media services. If you subscribe to the YouTube channel of a person who is pro-X, or the first videos which you watched when you started watching YouTube are from those channels which support X or propagate X ideology, then the other videos and channels which will appear on homescreen are likely to be replicas of that, or advocating the same ideology, for example, if you watch Sudarshan News, and you are most likely to end up watching other channels like it, which will internalize a particular ideology in you, and on the other hand if you watch a channel like Kunal Kamra, you will end up watching the videos Official PeeingHuman, which are vocal against that particular ideology.
I’m not here giving any judgment against any of these ideologies, but the concern which is created by this whole process. AI algorithm creates a vicious circle around its user, and don’t let it choose the sources, and thrust the synonymous sources before him. A user who followed a pro-X page will not be recommended a pro-Y page, and this process makes the ideologies rigid. Political parties and pressure groups take advantage of this process, and their IT cells create as many channels, pages and accounts as they can, people follow these accounts and then what that happens is called the phenomenon of alternative pictures of the same reality. A user who has ended up subscribing to ten channels which support the ideology Y, followed ten pages on Facebook which also support the same ideology, and same on Twitter and Instagram. At the end, s/he will have forty sources of information, but ironically they all are the exponents of one ideology which is Y. The user watches videos, reads tweets and posts which all say that ideology Y is better than the ideology X, and whatever information he has about ideology X, is given by the pages which are proponents of the ideology Y, and furthermore s/he also meets the people in the comment section, where they are doing the same thing i.e. supporting Y and abusing X, and thus s/he will eventually create a defective perception of the ideology X, and it is not against the nature. Somewhere in his conscience, the fact is lying that if Y was not better than X, why would so many people say so. He believes in the said reality because he has observed it in many pictures and all represent the same, but the story doesn’t end here, but it has its brutal and barbarous repercussions. On social media, pages won't upload articulated articles with arguments, discussing the real discourse of the ideologies X and Y, but as this is era is the era of nanotechnology, and life is fast so most of the people don’t have much time to read a long article, and that’s why memes and pictorial graphics with one or two lines are enough to know about something. People are presented with facts and not with proofs, no matter if it is real or fake, and while doing this, pages of ideology X won’t talk about the good qualities of the ideology Y, and the pages of ideology Y won’t talk about the good qualities of the ideology X. They spread hate against each other, and the things which used to be done by religious leaders and communal leaders decades before, are being done by social media pages.
The dilemma is critical but it is not like it doesn’t have a remedy. There may be many remedies like how to use AI algorithm as it won’t create homogeneity which will ultimate lead to concretise and fortify ideology X and against Y, whatever you know about Y is filtered which also includes spreading fake news against each other, but that’s something which needs deliberation and technical action, but here are some possible solutions which may help in the short term.
First of all, a user must have been following fact checking pages and websites so he would be aware that s/he is not getting false information about any ideology or community, which are most of the time, being spread to instigate communal hatred. S/he should also unsubscribe and unfollow those channels and pages which are proven to be the harbingers of fake information.
The pages a user follows must be representing a balanced choice, like if s/he is following the pages of X, s/he should also follow some pages of Y, even if s/he doesn’t like that ideology, but just to get the information directly and not filtered.
The most important step is to develop the habit of reading books and articles. Ten pages of a book in an hour are most beneficial than hundred posts with just two lines of information, but the reader must also ensure that the books s/he is reading, and the article s/he is going through are representing well the arguments of both ideologies, and the author and writer is not notorious for his/er biases and prejudice.
These steps are a must to stop social media from limiting the spectrum of information for its users, otherwise users are being trapped, and the information they get is strengthening their religious and ideological patterns and the byproduct of this process is the hatred which is ensuing against other communities.
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