Is the danger of social media exaggerated?

Author: Matthew Ingram (chief digital writer of "Columbia Journalism", previously a senior writer of Fortune Magazine); compiler Wang Qian (Associate Professor of the School of Media and Communication of Shanghai Jiaotong University, Director of Health Communication Research Center Director of Health Communication Research Center )

Source: "Youth Reporter", No. 13, 2022

On April 11, "Atlantic Monthly" published an article "Why Life of Americans in the past decade in the past decade" by Social Psychologist Jonato Hit, a social psychologist at New York University. The article pointed out that social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have built a modern society "Babel Tower". Social confusion caused by Internet services has disappeared from social trust and people's common belief in social institutions.

Social media bring social polarization and division

Heite once discussed the "dark psychology" effect on social networks in the previous article. He believes that the social media platform has created a new world, and the social network formed by different party factions is creating a becoming more. Come to the extreme world. The social media platform is full of false and prosperous media publicity activities, as well as tempting ideological violence.

Hait tries to express such a view. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have split, polarized, and irritated Americans with different groups through content recommendations, positioning and other algorithms. She also mentioned the concepts such as "filtering bubbles" and "echo rooms", and discussed how the ideas of social media platforms to guide other ordinary users became more "radical". For example, social media platforms can guide users to become right -wing conspiracy theories, and this situation has become commonplace on the Internet. When Facebook and Twitter's information services have become more popular, people have lost their original directions and cannot use language or ability to identify the truth. Not only are people be isolated from each other, they are also separated from the past and history. These social media platforms are almost perfectly designed with ethics without any reflection. The anger in the social media platform can reach a shocking level.

Two views of social media research

Chris Bell, a professor of sociology and public policy from Duke University, has been engaged in a series of research on social media, and he put forward similar arguments to Heite. In the study, he released a survey document entitled "Social Media and Political Disarnation: Cooperative Examination". Heite and Bell explained in the preface that the original intention of this article was to collect related research materials. It helps to clarify whether the social media platform has caused the major factor that has increased the phenomenon of "political dysfunction" in the United States and other countries.

The research document published by Heite and Bell shows that the scientific consensus reached by researchers on social media platforms or positive or negative effects is much less than many people think. For example, in this document, the question of whether social media platforms make people more polarized. Among them, the answer given by 11 studies is yes, and other 14 studies are negative or uncertain. In the answer to whether the social media platform created the "Echo Room", the answers given by 10 studies are yes, and the other 25 studies are denied or uncertain. Regarding whether the "Echo Room" and "Filtering Bubbles" in the Internet exist, some research on social media platforms on Europe believes: "Research on the use of news on social media platforms has not been found so far, The evidence of bubbles 'existence, and some research even discovered evidence, indicating that the "echo room' or 'filtering air bubble' increases the possibility of exposed to opposition."

Just as the reporter of "New Yorker" Ji Dien Lewis-Claus pointed out in an article, the documents released by Heite and Bell show that when talking about social media platforms It may be correct to think that it is harmful to society. But surprisingly, few studies can provide a clear answer.

Heat showed that he likes to collect related research through Google documents, even if these studies have found that he may not support his personal point of view. He said: "If you want to write an article, I must be sure that I am right. I can't give up reading those biased content because of my feelings. We have suffered prejudice for no exception." Bell said The relevant conclusions on social media platforms on social impacts are slightly different from Heite's conclusions. He believes that the platform plays a negative role, but researchers may exaggerate what the social media platform may do, and may seriously underestimate the subjective factors of people. For example, the idea of ​​political "echo room" may be "seriously exaggerated." Bell believes that only 3%-5%of people are in the political "echo room".

Lack of platform data in social media research

Some social researchers believe that the "black box effect" of the algorithm is making social media platform users more aggressive and may turn them into "conspiracy theorists". "New Yorker" reported that the political scientist of Datmouth College Brundan Nahan found in a new study that almost all the content related to extremism in social media platforms will be affected by relevant channels. Read by subscriber. Therefore, he proposed that this phenomenon is a manifestation of the actual needs of users, not the result of the manipulation or falsification preferences on social media platforms. Nahan believes that the most credible research in this field is inconsistent with the actual situation. For example, research on social media platforms in spreading extremist content and error information. Nahan believes that people who consume these contents on social media platforms are one of the few people who already hold extreme views. He pointed out that Bell and Heite stated in the study overview that people should at least have a reservation of the view of "the theory of fear of dislike evil". Some researchers have pointed out that any discussion on social media platforms on social impact is plagued by lack of data and limits available from social media platforms. Therefore, the lack of authoritative data is a huge problem for researchers. At the same time, it allows people to project their fear into this research field. Nahan told "New Yorkers" that in the past few years, Facebook has repeatedly promised to provide researchers with data from its network, and even established a touted touted "Social Science One" Partners, but so far they have not been able to provide researchers with a lot of available data. Nazanier Persia, a professor of law at Stanford University, was the co -founder of "Social Science One", and later resigned in depression. He believes that in the future, if the "platform accountability system" and "transparent regulations" are established, these are Related legislation may be helpful to improve the problem.

It has always been difficult to persuade Facebook (META) to share data with the outside world. After Cambridge Analysis Co., Ltd. obtains 87 million personal data on Facebook, it has become more difficult to share data. This scandal further weakened the efforts of any social media platform willing to allow external researchers to access personal content and data. Facebook also used this incident as a reason for closing the relevant research projects of New York University, saying that data grasping violated the platform company's commitment to protect user data.

ARCOM, a French media regulatory agency, recently launched a public consultation to collect the ideas of researchers, associations, and reporters to understand the expectations and needs of researchers for data from online platform data. Article 31 of the EU New Digital Services Act will take effect next year, which stipulates that researchers obtain data from large digital platforms such as Facebook and Google.

Response and contention of different opinions

In the study, Hait and Bell cited the views in the book "Internet Propaganda: Metamorphosis, False Information, and Radivism in American Politics". The book believes that the negative impact of the current media has even led to the emergence of many social problems in the United States. It is not a social media platform through manipulating algorithms to bring political topics as clicks and Internet hackers, social media platform vests or network spray floods. As a result, it is the result of unbalanced media structure and ecology in the United States for decades.

When the co -founder of the New York Non -profit Town Hall project, Maka Severi, in response to Hait's article, believes that Heite built the "Babelta" of modern society and caused social confusion as social issues. The root cause of the root cause is "untenable". Severi believes that Facebook and Twitter have not snatched everyone's attention. He quoted a lot of data: "In 2020, the average time of Americans spent 5.5 hours in various forms of leisure activities every day. Among them, Americans spend 3 hours a day watch TV on average, and the time to play games on the computer is 36 36 on the computer 36 on the computer. In minutes, the time with other people's social and communication is about 32 minutes. "He also cited the data of the US Statistical Administration to express his point of view:" Before the goalkeeper of the traditional news industry was eliminated by the social media platform, the seemingly powerful social institution in the United States was early It has been rotten. "Therefore, he believes that social media platforms are not the root causes of the current social problems in the United States.

Bloomberg reports a complaint against Meta from American social media users. Various complaints mentioned in the courts of the United States claim that over -contact platforms including Facebook and Instagram have caused 8 suicide attempts or actual suicide incidents, as well as diet disorders and insomnia.

When the National Public Radio's David Fulikvirk replaced Joe Kam as the editor -in -chief of the New York Times, the two talked about the New York Times' attitude towards Twitter in an interview. Carine believes that Twitter has begun to occupy an important position in the minds of some people in the news editor room. They define themselves as participants in the Twitter ecosystem and bear some pressure on them. However, too much indulgence from feedback from Twitter may distort news practitioners' awareness of the ideas of wider social audiences. At the same time, according to the "Wall Street Journal" interview based on anonymous message, Musk filed a $ 45 billion acquisition offer to Twitter in April, but since then, the company's estimation of the company's amount of spam or robot account is not accurate. , So this acquisition was suspended. Relevant discussions that bring negative effects on social media platforms will not stop. With the development of the Internet and the emergence of more real data, whether the algorithm black box and the social media platform have a negative impact on people. This issue may be better. Answer.

(The original text of this article is have dangers of social media ben overstated?

Reference format for this article:

Wang Qian. Is the danger of social media exaggerated [J]. Young reporter, 2022 (13): 97-98.

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