People continue to engage in complex social behavior when communicating with each other on social media. As information technology advances, platform efficiency and scale are increasing, and online community members can instantly interact, give feedback, organize and disengage.
Many Internet celebrities have emerged, expanding from entertainment, travel, dining and shopping to more conservative domains such as education and politics, and exerting enormous influence on others.
Facebook connects people and has helped revolutions sweep across North Africa and the Arab world; live broadcasts on YouTube can influence the outcome of national elections; and Twitter has become a tool to mobilize supporters.
The frequency and intensity of online networking has changed how people receive information and interact.
In particular, social media apps enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) are intervening in interactions by acting as hidden, third-party information screeners, matchers or compilers to curry favor with users and create group identities that on the surface appear to be true, but are actually false.
What motivates the social media evolution, and what are the backgrounds of the individuals, organizations and businesses that promote its development?
If users cannot clarify these questions, how can they ensure that biases arising from conflicts of interest do not affect their online activity?
The rapidly fluctuating popularity of Internet celebrities as users like, dislike, donate, block and share creates strong competition, easily swaying newly minted celebrities to take extreme positions.
Judgement and impulse control can be weakened by the “crowd effect.” As Internet celebrities and followers become paranoid and hyperactive due to collective obsessions, society is doomed to pay a high price.
Psychiatric medicine emphasizes self-identity and boundaries of the mind.
However, the social media model distorts how participants maintain their self-identity and the stability of their interpersonal boundaries.
Built on limited time and space, traditional interpersonal interactions proceed according to fixed tacit assumptions.
However, online communities to a higher degree allow others to enter a person’s private sphere, where they can spy on people’s home life, leisure activities, intimate relationships and personal values.
Some might think that deciding to disclose private information is a matter of personal choice, when various active and passive factors, such as peer pressure, job requirements, self-fulfillment, lifestyle and a lack of experience with privacy protection, make it difficult for most people to detach themselves.
How do the changes in interpersonal relationships and lifestyles caused by social media apps affect people’s awareness, emotions, behaviors and physiological rhythms?
For example, the restoration and stability of interpersonal relationships and daily routines are key non-pharmaceutical treatments for people with mood disorders, but when elements of self-esteem, interaction, knowledge, work and political participation are largely determined by ever-changing online communities, how stable can people’s minds — society’s mind — really be?
In the future, expertise with the mind is likely to play a role not only in AI development, but also, and more importantly, in the prevention and restoration of countless souls who have been hurt in online communities.
Huang Chih-chun is a visiting staff psychiatrist at the National Cheng Kung University Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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