The dreamy shell of a nightmare

“Internet is like the Wild West; I mean, it doesn’t follow any laws.” This statement is made by American comedian and writer Steve Wright, as regulatory systems continue to advance in order to monitor the cyber space. However, the internet, especially social networks, are heavily influenced by information flows and manipulations, and a large amount of false and biased data is presented to people in a beautiful disguise, confirming the statement above.

What are young people looking for on the internet?

The internet nowadays manages a significant portion of people’s daily activities, from communications and friendships to employment-related tasks, and in a sense, it has taken over most aspects of modern human life. In such a vast world, dealing with any aspect has its own complexities, but despite extensive research, there are still many dark alleys in this utopian land that can pose serious dangers for passersby.

In this report, we will discuss the motivations of young people in using the internet and virtual space, as well as the risks that these motivations face from various influences.

To better understand this subject, we went to a group of young people to examine the motivations for using the internet.

Entertainment, the remedy for the pain of unemployment.

Among young people, entertainment is the most popular option and, in other words, they prioritize it as their main goal for spending time on the internet. This entertainment consists of various sections, including activities such as browsing social networks, playing online games, and watching live programs.

Interestingly, most of these individuals believe that if they do not allocate their time to entertainment through the online space, they will face serious problems and if they have a specific task to do, they will no longer waste time in this way.

In this field study, young people aged fifteen to thirty were questioned, many of whom considered browsing the web as a suitable way to spend time and escape from the various challenges of life.

One of the things that has attracted the most audience after entertainment is education. People have described that they use the internet for learning many things and according to them, a significant part of these teachings is related to earning income. For example, the youth use these teachings to learn basic life skills such as hygiene, as well as methods of earning income and extensive investments. Some even believe that the internet is much more effective than the country’s education system in meeting their skill needs.

Creating a virtual connection, simple and without responsibility.

The third most popular reason for using the online space is to create new connections; connections that do not have many of the complexities of social relationships and help individuals overcome many fears. The results from the survey show that on average, more than half of web and social media users are looking for new friends or even suitable life partners. The responses in this regard mainly point towards avoiding the difficulties of traditional social relationships and using this space to get to know like-minded communities in order to ultimately achieve their social goals. Some also say that finding an audience in the real world is very difficult and this has led to feelings of loneliness; a void that is inevitably filled with virtual friendships. It is also worth mentioning that the lack of responsibility in virtual relationships is another advantage that young people seek in their online relationships.

The skin of a dream is a nightmare.

Until now, everything seems normal and it appears that some people are using tools to make their lives easier, but the real situation is revealed when we look behind these colorful curtains and pass these perspectives through the critical lens of pragmatism. In other words, we must evaluate the theory of using the internet space to achieve clear motivations with what we see in society. What we see in the online space and social networks is vastly different from what is being said; a space that was created for easy access to information, but is now faced with the problem of distinguishing between correct and incorrect information.

A closer look at the structure existing in the online space for managing and directing thoughts shows that entertainment has turned into an addictive opiate by encompassing a large statistical community, keeping the audience hooked to the virtual space. This action sets the cycle of attracting the audience to advertisements and sales in motion for this vast market. Every advertisement needs an audience, and the entertainment sector prepares and thirsts the audience for the advertising content to execute the next technique. This is where thousands of bloggers and online sellers hop on the wave of entertainment, education, creating connections, and so on, and enter into action. From sellers of courses on attracting friends and spouses to food testers, everyone contributes to the expansion of this grand tour, so as not to lose any small catch; perhaps this is why the term “web” has been chosen for this space.

In the midst of all this, the word “trend” is one of those secret codes used by social networks to direct thoughts; for example, an unknown music suddenly becomes the center of attention in a TikTok challenge, and then the algorithms of these networks move towards displaying this content more than others, and suddenly bloggers also involuntarily use this music to be heard more. In this way, an unknown work becomes famous on a global level and after being mentioned, it takes on the role of entertainment tool unconsciously. Interestingly, these same networks do not allow the publication of great works of art due to copyright laws, and provide a perfect platform for directing public taste.

It should be noted that social networks, like any large business, also do whatever it takes to make more money by catering to people’s tastes and encouraging them to spend more time in this space. Now that the public’s taste has been determined, it’s time to create opportunities for income. To achieve this goal, ease of communication between customers and sellers has been established so that sellers can take advantage of the opportunity and bring their businesses to this space. Of course, this has many benefits for society and online shopping can be considered one of the most important commercial achievements of recent years. However, businesses in this space need to be seen, and in this bottleneck, public figures, celebrities, and bloggers step onto the scene and, relying on the same subject, cater to the public’s taste and attract them towards a specific target audience. Ultimately, they become a tool for advertising for businesses.

These individuals earn their income by increasing the number of their followers and they also spend money for this purpose. By following existing algorithms, they ultimately play the role of driving people to be present on social networks. In simpler terms, the structure of these virtual networks operates in a way that, without paying any fees and by creating an endless cycle of advertisers attracting followers and businesses advertising, they achieve their development goals.

Virtual education, from poisonous success to modern myths.

As we move away from the entertainment market, we enter the educational sector; an area that without any mercy has challenged the scientific space of the world and created a phenomenon that can be called modern ignorance.

It is impossible to scroll through Instagram, Twitter, Persian websites, etc. without encountering advertisements for making money from the online space; ideas that everyone follows from a specific source and give young people the promise of becoming wealthy in the shortest amount of time. This trend, which can be called the toxic success advertisement, pushes you towards doing anything in exchange for making money, which also must be in line with the algorithms of social networks.

Without a doubt, we have all heard the famous phrase of our Machiavellian philosophy, “the end justifies the means.” However, in the toxic culture of success, this statement penetrates the audience’s mind to the point where values such as social morality and rule of law are forgotten. Now, this mechanism has reached a point where every person, without necessarily having any special knowledge, tries to sell an educational package; from multi-million dollar packages on Feng Shui to learning how to make money from digital currencies. Everyone wants to teach you how to become rich and in a bigger scheme, everyone is trying to achieve this goal for themselves; teachings that are based solely on the number of followers of the instructor and have no foundation, have introduced new phenomena such as modern superstitions into society; superstitions such as organizing a wallet to earn more income and reposting a post to hear good news that is not accepted by any sane mind. However, looking at the virtual space shows that

The decline of social morals and dignity.

“Joey B Toonz”, a podcast producer on YouTube, talks about people’s behavior on social media. He believes that new social media platforms like TikTok are trying to lead society towards a decline in knowledge, ethics, and dignity. He believes that if we base everything on the number of followers, there is no longer a need for an elite society and we should prepare the ground for the presence and display of the majority. As a result, TikTok has become a place for untalented individuals to express themselves and its algorithms are tired of meaningful content, while exposing one person’s eating habits to millions of viewers. Gradually, those who gain a lot of views by doing things like dancing in their room or eating large amounts of food, start to believe they are talented and this is how real talents are destroyed. Therefore, if making money on TikTok is more focused on showcasing such things, it can be considered a step towards the decline of ethics and dignity.

Filtering, the other side of the coin for directing thoughts.

At the beginning of the report, we discussed some of the motivations for young people in the country to use the internet. So far, it can be concluded that the goals and motivations for using the web are undergoing significant changes due to the income-generating objectives of large companies.

The next barrier to access to the mentioned goals is the storm of advertising, political filtering and censorship. It is not possible for there to be a space for advertising and for political groups not to use it as a tool for propaganda. The online space and social networks are also not exempt from this rule and a simple search in this space proves the above statement.

Actions such as creating cyber armies, producing trends and direct and indirect advertising content by political parties to influence people’s thoughts, make up a significant portion of web data, which, like data fortresses, have targeted public tastes and opinions. Political propaganda, like the market of social networks, has no goal other than attracting more audience, and it is not strange to see a food blogger issue a political statement during elections in this space.

Censorship and filtering also have a similar structure and attempt to push thoughts towards the direction desired by the ruling policy by closing specific paths. Although this policy will not be very successful in the modern world, we must remember that the general public tends to move towards easily accessible content, and filtering continues to operate based on this argument; for example, in our country, access to pornography is completely blocked and the audience easily uses a filter breaker to access this data; but in terms of news and statistical information, filtering blocks access to a specific type of content and makes another part available to the public; the public, who easily finds the information they need, will not seek verification and this is how filtering makes specific content available to guide thoughts in the community.

The world is full of false, incorrect, and biased information.

According to the Webster Dictionary, disinformation refers to false and misleading information deliberately spread with tactics to harm an individual, social group, organization, or country, or to influence public opinion and obscure the truth.

Misinformation, as defined by the UNESCO Journalism Handbook, refers to false information that is believed to be true by the person or media owner who spreads it, and its purpose is not to cause harm or damage.

Imagine a global state where financial and political groups are fully engaged in producing content and almost all individuals have also turned into their own advertising tools. In this world, finding accurate information is as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack and there is almost no certainty in the accuracy of any data.

It is not surprising that these challenges exist in an era known as the information age, where anyone can occupy a position as a data producer. However, the fact that the nightmare of a high volume of incorrect and biased information is presented in a dreamy guise called easy and free access to the world, is the main challenge and it seems that having a general understanding of this space and being aware of the high probability of encountering incorrect information can increase the necessary readiness to solve the existing challenges. Therefore, it can be concluded that young people’s access to their motivations in using the web is accompanied by serious obstacles, and the goals of the younger generation in the whirlpool of information available on the web inevitably take a specific direction.

Notes:

1- For more information, see Ayerton, Sherylin, journalism, fake news and propaganda, translated by Hamid Morashi, UNESCO, 1399.