Digital Natives

I am not a digital native, my daughter is. I got my first email address after I turned 20, and have since watched as this realm has become central to all our lives. Our banking, shopping, communicating. Before anyone had ever heard the word social networking, before Facebook, I was using the internet. In Britain the demographic that use the internet most(at one point anyhow) were mothers, hence the last election being described as the ‘mumsnet election’ ha. I suppose when a baby keeps you in the house all the time, that makes sense. In a world where women find they don’t have the traditional support structures when they become mothers, it would seem fairly understandable.

When you use the internet, you don’t know who you are talking to. This is a lesson most of us learn fairly early on. You gradually look at how people use the internet. If someone is living in pain for instance, or bedbound, or is trapped in a situation where there are few releases, they may use the internet as an escape. Possibly even a fantasy, I would say this is perfectly normal, understandable, and possibly even a very good thing that the internet offers. It certainly shouldn’t be a problem.

In online communities, the lesson that everything may not be as it appears is central. The woman who has posted to say she has had a dozen miscarriages in three years may be living with a hellish situation, or she may be saying it because she wants attention. That she is saying this for attention does not make her a malicious liar, it just may be easier to construct a fantasy to deal with her pain than deal with the real thing that is causing her unhappiness. You learn gradually the implications of this. But the lesson seemed to stop with the emergence of a blogosphere and twittersphere which made the lines between the public and a previously hermetically sealed media bleed.

The perception was always that this more or less artificially constructed ‘political blogosphere’ was likely to get people involved in politics,. The perception from many of the journalists and media types I spoke to, was that they felt this was a way for people to get into their world. I don’t think it occured often that the window that was offered was two way, and that the difficulty adjusting to this new environment was theirs. For me, this window has opened my eyes to the severe dysfunction that our political media create.

Social media has bigger implications for our mainstream media than falling newspaper sales.This window did not remove the inequality that is inherent in the relationship between society and the media. It highlighted it. One word from a media figure can cause massive changes in someone’s life. Change the way the police deal with them, bring about attention they may not want., Bring about attention they may want.

Those celebrities and journalists with 24-5000 followers, for whom people are little more than a username who may interest them for a second, need to start recognising the power they have. The potential to create real risk and to do real harm. Because people elevated by celebrities and journalists used to being able to operate completely oblivious to the effects of their actions, do not just disappear when that celebrity has gone ‘oh shit’ and dropped them.

If they want the freedom of no regulation they need to act responsibly. No other organisation which interacts with the public is allowed to behave without any codes of practice. NOt social work, not shops. not anyone. If a drug worker ro someone who works in education or social work fails to report a child protection concern, ignorance is not an excuse. If a media organisation fails to act on information about vulnerable people, they just don’t have to answer the phone and they can watch their social network close around them. This being the culture which allowed their disconnection in the first place.

Social media will eventually evolve so that people create that accountability if it does not exist. The lack of accountability highlighted by Leveson is bad enough when the media is a sealed bubble. When that bubble has immediate access to change people’s lives without thought, that lack of accountability becomes more dangerous.

The society that provide the social part of social media, already know about the media. We have learned. Perhaps it is time for the media part of social media, to take the time to learn about society and the effect they have on it.