Social Media and Social Capital
By Megan Koczur, Nina Benson, and Corey Scamman
Introduction
The use of social media has increased heavily over the last few years with advancements in technology. More people worldwide are using smartphones regularly and as a result creating more social media accounts than we have seen ever before. With this increased use of technology, there are positive and negative effects that arise. Social media allows users to stay in contact with one another as well as meet new people. This event is an example of social capital or, the relationships between people. Another example of this is the Chinese Social Credit System. China has recently implemented a way of assigning each citizen a number value that then increases or decreases based on their actions. A higher social score relates to a well behaved citizen leading to discounts and rewards while a lower social score relates to a misbehaved citizen who then may be punished.
Social Media
Why is social media necessary? The four reasons for the logic behind social media are programmability, datafication, connectivity, and popularity. Programmability is the idea that people use social media to connect with other users and companies, an example being applications like LinkedIn. Datafication is the conversion of data to valuable information that is later used by people or companies (Dijck, 2013). This is exemplified by businesses who use reviews to make changes that will increase their revenue. Connectivity allows users to be matched with specific information. On Instagram, each user has an “explorer page” filled with posts that relate to frequently viewed posts and accounts, which is a good example of this concept (Figure 2). Popularity is measured quantitatively through “likes”, “retweets”, and other praises. People and businesses’ self images and perceived successes rely on this arbitrary measure.
The Chinese Social Credit System
China has recently implemented a Social Credit System that tracks the citizens of their country to monitor their every move. Each citizen starts with a specific number and is able to gain or lose points based on good and bad actions. Jaywalking would lead to a decrease in points whereas a donation would allow a citizen to increase their point value. Citizens do not know exactly where these donations go which leads to mixed feelings about whether this is truly a “good” act. There are also thoughts that this could be unfair as those that do not have sufficient funds cannot make donations and thereby have more difficulty raising a low score (Kostka, 2019).
With this system, discounts are given to the citizens with high points for certain items. The system is able to keep track of good and bad deeds by using facial recognition on video cameras. These cameras are much like traffic cameras in America, but instead are used to watch the citizens and add or deduct points when necessary (Figure 3). A problem that arose when discussing this was the idea of identical twins or people that look exceptionally alike. Points could be given or taken from the wrong people and there is little that can be done to challenge this. Punishments include not having the ability to buy airfare, the potential of getting dogs taken away by the government, and becoming “blacklisted” for not paying debts to the government. NBC News did a piece on the Chinese Social Credit system and dived deeper into how it worked and what people thought. (Figure 4)
Conclusion
In conclusion, the advancements made in computer science over the past decade have provided our society with irreversible inventions. Social media platforms, machine learning, and massive databases have changed the way we communicate and conduct business as a society. Both social media and China’s intensive social credit system have pros and cons and supporters on both sides, but one thing we can say for sure is that these systems will not be disappearing anytime soon. Social media allows us to connect with more people and yet it makes us feel more disconnected and unsatisfied with the things we have in life. The Chinese Social Credit system fosters good behavior through fear of an authoritarian power. Social media affects people on a daily basis, but whether an individual receives positive or negative utility depends on how he or she uses the platform. At the end of the day, social platforms are neither inherently good or bad, they are simply platforms.
References
Dijck, J. V., & Poell, T. (2013). Understanding Social Media Logic. Media and Communication, 1(1), 2–14.
Kostka, G. (2019). China’s social credit systems and public opinion: Explaining high levels of approval. New Media & Society, 21(7), 1565–1593. doi: 10.1177/1461444819826402
