We have come a long way from the “pen-pal” days of old. In fact I suspect some of the younger generation may not even be familiar with this concept. Those were the days when through an organization you contacted someone on the basis of mutual interests by snail mail as it is derisively referred to these days; and some of these contacts developed into lasting friendships. Digitisation has taken over and communication has exploded both in terms of variety and speed. Undoubtedly there are tremendous advantages. But it is useful to remind ourselves that just as a car can be an irreplaceable means of transport, or a lethal weapon, so also with social media.
A major downside was dramatically driven home recently with “fake news”. Pizza-gate was one such recent news item reporting that a pizza outlet in Washington ran a child sex racket involving Hilary Clinton. It culminated in an armed man entering the establishment with intent to kill. In the recent referendum in Italy the “5-star Movement” was responsible for posting online pictures of crowds supposedly protesting against the prime minister. It turned out these were actually pictures of a crowd gathered to welcome the pope! More topical, I received a post from a “Ritu Raj Singh Buttar” who “quoted” the World Bank President, Forbes, NY Times, Washington Post, Bloomberg and others as extolling Modi and the virtues of demonetisation. It turns out the bogus post came from “fun.funky.com.tattooart”. The clever use of social media in politics is exploding in a manner never seen before; and it goes beyond the IS recruiting innocent teenagers.
Whilst making worldwide connections and business transactions possible in exponential ways, more and more studies are emerging on the heavy toll they are taking on our behaviour as individuals, the most prominent being addiction. Research has shown that British companies have lost billions of dollars in productivity annually because of social media addiction among employees. Further, it has adversely affected our capacity to truly “socialise”. The ability to interact with people face-to-face is an art that has to be developed and there are serious concerns over how this generation is more interested in social media connection and not the immediate interaction with each other. A study conducted by Flashgap, found that eighty-seven percent of teenagers admitted to missing out on a conversation because of phone distractions. Fifty-four percent experienced a fear of missing out if not actively checking social networks. A survey conducted by USC Marshall School of Business found that one out of four respondents were unable to recollect a time being without their devices. This generation is in great danger of becoming a society of tech savvy people, who are uncomfortable with or unable to maintain interpersonal communications in the real world. Social media is here to stay and indeed will expand; but it has put the value and skills of face-to-face interaction at risk; it has made us less social because “likes” induce only a short term feel good factor and can never be a substitute for true relationships.
In a study presented on September 11, 2015 at The British Psychological Society Development and Social Psychology Section Annual Conference in Manchester, UK, scientists concluded that teenagers who use and have a high emotional investment in social media, experience reduced sleep quality, lower self-esteem and more anxiety and depression than those who are less emotionally invested in it. Add to that additional components like cyber bullying and cyber stalking, and the problem reaches alarming proportions. More practical dangers occur when posting detailed holiday plans online. Dubious characters are known to use this information for break-ins. There are other even greater concerns. We have all heard of hacking and “phishing”. On-line con-artists who have swindled hundreds of people with their cock-and-bull yarns of one description or another. Identity theft can escalate from swindling to extortion by morphing a face onto objectionable nude pictures or falsely depicting sexual activity. Recourse to legal action by proving the pictures morphed and defamatory, requires a robust cyber crime fighting cell which our country just does not have. And it gets worse. We have moved on from extortion to “sextortion”.
“Friends” on social media smooth talk a person into performing sexual acts on-line, record them and then blackmail the individual. There are now around 700 cases recorded in the UK with numerous suicides. Undoubtedly this is just the tip of the iceberg. Such aberrant behaviour is rooted in the false sense of security and privacy in being alone behind closed doors, and therefore “safe”; a purely delusional situation with disastrous consequences. Research conducted in Ghana has shown that about 91% of all teenagers on social media have been exposed to more than one form of sexual activity. Most of them were exposed to masturbation and casual sex.
The solution is so childishly simple. There has to be more parental control. The rule of thumb should be not to put anything on-line that you consider personal and private, no matter how persuasive the other party; it is the equivalent of walking naked in a mall and can come back to haunt you. We have to resist the obsession to pour out our lives on social media because there is a world out there ready to use the information to your detriment. It is far more preferable to develop close friendships at a personal level to share problems as well as the joys of life. It is essentially the art of getting out and living life rather than enacting it on a computer screen. There has to be some control of content. Just as we have woken up to recruitment for terrorism, and paedophilia, with “hashes”, service providers like Facebook, Twitter etc. must be held more accountable for the services they provide. And finally, our law enforcers must get rid of the cobwebs, move into the digital age and establish aggressive cybercrime fighting cells.
(Dr Gladstone D’Costa is the Chairman, Accreditation Committee and member, Executive Committee, Goa Medical Council)
