CULTURE MATTERS Part 5: Trends in South Korea and the U.S.
Trends constantly change and sometimes return every now and again. As a designer and user of both Korean and U.S. applications, I notice the major trends in user interactivity with AI in South Korea and the U.S.
In today’s product design, designers put a strong emphasis on user-centered design and innovation to meet the user’s needs and goals. The apps constantly advance in tools and trends that lead to innovative designs. AI is one of the fastest-growing industries today as stated in Forbes. More specifically, an increased use of AI assistants has been integrated into digital platforms.
“As the tech paradigm has continued to expand and grow, the use of AI assistants seems primed to help automate and digitize a wide range of service sectors.” (Shiraz Jagati, “5 AI trends to look forward to in 2023 and beyond”)
An example is the newly developed AI, Chat GPT. Even Snapchat created an additional feature called ‘My AI’ chatbot, allowing Snapchat users to not only talk to friends and family members but also to their AI everyday.
With many American applications integrating the AI assistant feature, it is clear that American applications tend to design their platform with personalization to its user, which relates to America’s individualistic culture. The AI is designed to ask open-ended questions for the user to decide the flow of the conversation. With the user’s freedom to prompt a topic, it customizes a personalized conversation.
On the other side of the ocean, South Korea has integrated AI-based virtual avatars, also known as Deepfake avatars. These virtual avatars take the face of the user and mimic the face with another face, say a K-pop star’s facial and body features, and then an AI processes a deep-learning analysis. Using the deepfake avatar, the user can have a virtual meeting or interview, also known as synthetic media with another person’s altered face. With South Korea’s uprising AI advancement in deepfake avatar, South Korea’s AI is used mainly for beauty.
Lookism is defined as “the construction of a standard for beauty and attractiveness, and judgments made about people based on how well or poorly they meet the standard” (Oxford Languages). The rise of lookism in South Korea has led plastic surgery to become mainstream in Korean society.
“External appearance is now considered a pivotal factor that contributes to professional achievements and interpersonal relationships. Correlation between attractiveness and success is not a new concept nor is it limited to South Korea; however, over recent decades this phenomenon of ‘lookism’ has led many individuals to pursue cosmetic surgery as a means for reaching social and professional success.” (Rachel H. Park, Paige L. Myers, and Howard N. Langstein, “Beliefs and trends of aesthetic surgery in South Korean young adults”).
One of the biggest influences for Koreans to undergo plastic surgery is K-Pop and K-Dramas as stated by Dr Lee Ik-jun, President of the Korean Association of Plastic Surgeons (Nicola Smith, “Why South Korea’s cosmetic surgery empire is both a source of pride and pain”). South Koreans are looking for similar features, such as enlarged eyes, a v-shaped face, and clear pale skin. Beauty is collectively decided to look this way and it is now normalized and applied to South Korea’s AI-based virtual avatars. This brings to the collectivistic mindset because they all tend to agree to the same beauty standards.
Psychologically, women in South Korea particularly lack self-esteem and are pressured to do plastic surgery because they want to have Western facial features and believe that “applicants who look conventionally more attractive are given a leg up in the recruitment process.” (Korea Exposè, “Why is Plastic Surgery So Popular in South Korea?”). With the intense social pressures in South Korea, it is hard to avoid its perfectionist culture, which may also result in how Korean Apps are designed to attract its users.
Similar to Korea’s AR filter app SNOW, the Ulike app enhances the user’s face to have large concave eyes, narrow nose bridges, and full lips, allowing all users to look ‘perfect.’ They want similar features and thus ultimately, end up looking the same.
Why are South Koreans so influenced by the perfectionist culture?
The perfectionistic ideology in South Korea is influenced by history and culture, and it began when the country was recovering from the Korean War in the 1950s. As South Koreans endured a long recovery period, it has led them to have determination and persistence, as well as strong work ethics during the rapid growth in the South Korean economy. Additionally, the Confucian values of upholding education, strong work ethic, respect for elders, and loyalty have always been embedded in Korean culture. With a deep sense of community and excellence, South Koreans fervently strive for academic and career success by comparing themselves to others and setting high expectations. Whereas in the U.S., federal labor laws established an 8-hour work day through the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, South Korea just established a maximum 9-hour work day set by the Labor Standards Act on March 20th, 2018.
“The maximum weekly working hours is down from 68 hours to 52 hours, and even in the case of industries exempted from the new working hour regulations, employers must grant workers a daily rest period of at least 11 hours.” (Ministry of Employment and Labor, “Labor Standards”) Nevertheless, South Koreans habitually study and work rather than be at leisure. “Working hard, overtime and sacrificing personal time is a virtue that one must have if one wants to have a successful career.” (Steve Yoon, VICE World News)
“South Koreans have been shown to have greater levels of interdependent self-construal, in which the view of the self is connected with others as opposed to being separate and unique from others. Thus, South Koreans may use social comparison to blend in with the community according to its expectations and norms.” (Stacy Y. Ko, Meifen Wei, Hyun-Joo Park, and Kenneth Wang, “Appearance Comparison, Appearance Self-Schema, Perfectionism, and Body Esteem Among Korean College Students”)
Although South Korea’s obsession with perfectionistic ideology can motivate people to have strong work ethics by setting high expectations, these expectations can be unrealistic and unachievable. This strive for perfectionism also can aggravate the lack of self-esteem, causing individuals to never feel that they’re good enough and exacerbating mental illnesses. Perfectionism is not only defined by how they look but by achieving their highest goals in other areas of their lives. With the social pressure of aiming to be ‘perfect’ in looks as well as to never fail, it has led to an increase in suicide rates for South Koreans.
“As per media reports, at least 13,000 people in South Korea ended their life last year, with a rate of 26 per 100,000.” (The Economic Times, “Suicide rate in Korea rises, highest among developed countries. Here’s why”).
Conclusion
There are numerous apps made to be accessible in various countries to expand its market. Although one of the essential factors is translating to a local language for the expansion of a product overseas, it is equally as important to be culturally aware and study the local user’s behaviors. To do this, there are various cultural elements to understand prior to exposing an application overseas: localization, language nuance, and current trends.
Culture is embedded in any medium, from non-digital to digital form. I write CULTURE MATTERS to share my perspective as a Korean-Japanese designer with experience living, speaking, and understanding Korean, Japanese, and American culture. I think it is important to recognize culture for designers, engineers, and anyone who is trying to expand their target market internationally.
Users prioritize their convenience and see value in using a digital product designed intentionally for them. However, it is not guaranteed that understanding cultures will bring success to the digital market overseas, as trends are always shifting. Therefore, it is imperative that we are aware of current local trends as technology is always advancing, so we can avoid making mistakes when an app or business expands to other countries.
Are you also Korean-Japanese? Do you see cultural stigmas due to these cultures’ historical pasts? Are you a foreigner living in Japan or Korea and find yourself stuck in areas that don’t translate? Have you found distinct differences between your culture and theirs?
If you would like to know more about South Korea and Japan’s design trends or want to share insights on cultural comparisons in business and design, please shoot me an email at yurikawada1@gmail.com. I would like Culture Matters to be a platform to provide insights into cultural awareness and positively enhance our understanding of one another.
Culture truly matters and I wish to interact, share, and learn from each other from various points of view.
