How to live better in a digital world？
Please answer me without thinking: how long can you last without your mobile phone, computer and other electronic devices?
Introduction
From everyday socialising and shopping, to entertainment and working, we are irreversibly, moving towards the digital world. The digital world now exists almost parallel to the real world, with smart devices in the hands of people of all ages and ethnic groups. So I am acutely aware of the convenience that an increasingly digital environment brings to our daily lives and its importance to the development of modern society. However, excessive trust and reliance on technology can also have some unpredictable consequences. In this blog, I will critically examine the implications of living in a digital world and explore our responsibilities as digital citizens.
The necessity to develop digital citizens
Some parents do not allow their children to use electronic devices until a certain age in order to avoid inappropriate exposure and some trouble in the digital world. But there is no doubt that the digital world has its wonderful values. According to a report on digital citizenship education by the leading non-profit organisation Common Sense, digital media can help their children learn (72%) and be creative (60%); and children who consume high-quality media content are more likely to develop strong executive functioning skills. So what we need to do is not simply isolate children from their digital devices, we need to enable them to lead safer and better quality digital lives. And the good media habits they develop in their daily lives can be carried into adulthood.
However, becoming a competent digital citizen, even if it allows us to better adapt and experience a high quality of digital life, does not mean that we are “safe” from the conveniences of the digital age. In the age of the Internet, the security of people’s privacy is a serious and important issue that needs to be addressed.
The conflict between profit-making and privacy protection
Internet advertising has always been a significant source of revenue for Internet companies, with accurate placement based on user profiles and behavior being especially crucial. Accurate placement can make advertising more targeted and efficient, but it requires tracking users’ conduct, which causes a conflict between corporate advertising and user privacy. However, the more accurate the advertising, the more customers believe their privacy is being “invaded” and “their daily lives may have been monitored by mobile phone software.”
For example, users are concerned about privacy and security while still eager to share ‘private information’ about their daily lives on social media. Similarly, people are content to embrace the convenience that comes with precise targeting. Simply said, users want to be able to access a broader selection of services while providing as little personal information as possible. In other words, users can tolerate a certain level of information gathering if corporations can limit the risk of harm to users from the collection of personal information.
The collection of information by companies is not the only moment when users’ privacy is violated. With digital technology becoming increasingly powerful, not only your information but also your “face” can be maliciously stolen.
The conflict between pleasure and hidden danger
Nowadays, AI’s powerful deep learning capabilities have greatly lowered the technical threshold to be able to automate face swapping. Users no longer need a computer, high performance GPU, programming and AI knowledge, all they need is a mobile phone and a selfie to swap the faces of the main characters in multiple film and TV scenes into their own, lowering the barrier to entry and use for users and greatly inspiring their social and sharing passion. Although the AI face-swapping feature does have a certain value when viewed in this light, as it allows netizens to use their talents and entertain the public at the same time. However, it has its drawbacks, which cannot be ignored.
In early 2017, a controversy erupted when an ID named “deepfakes” made a composite of Wonder Woman Gal Gadot’s face with a pornographic film. Gal Gadot is just the beginning of a number of public figures who have now been shot, and some of the composite videos have even been posted on adult video sites, raising a number of social and moral questions. There is nothing that Gal Gadot and her team can do about this kind of behaviour. From a legal point of view, it hardly works, you can ask a website to stop the infringement, but unfortunately, often the rights are defended to no avail.
The bad effects of a public figure having his face swapped, because everyone knows it’s fake, aren’t too bad, but what if it’s an ordinary person whose likeness is violated and is composited into a pornographic video, it’s a devastating blow to an ordinary person.
Conclusion:
AI face swapping and PS spoofing have become internet subcultures, and there is no need to entirely abolish them. However, striking a balance between this new culture and civil rights protection is a realistic idea that must be actively addressed and regularly investigated. The key to technology’s ‘consequences’ is the mentality of its users. The legislation explicitly specifies that “the use of illegal information technology to infringe on the privacy and portrait rights of others is not permitted.” This is not to discourage the use of new technology, but rather to establish realistic limits for their use.
The world of constantly changing technology is also a world of rules, and when individuals reap the benefits of technological development, they must adapt to the regulations that come with it. Only strong control and sensible application will allow digital technology to truly drive social growth.
Inflection
First of all, I would like to give appreciations to those people whoever made any contributions to this blog. When I started this course, I encountered some difficulties, but I also learned and improved a lot from it. I would say it’s the most interesting course I’ve ever had.
Challenge:
This course has presented me with challenges that go beyond testing my self-discipline in asynchronous learning. It has also highlighted the importance of using non-academic language when writing, as well as the need to properly attribute image sources.
Improvement and Application:
As a student majoring in finance and economics, I have become accustomed to using formal language and extensive academic literature to support my ideas. From my own experience, essay writing was solely a product of my individual reflection on a single topic. Even when I attempted to engage in critical thinking, it was still limited to my personal perspective. However, this course has provided me with the opportunity to explore diverse viewpoints on the same topic, not only from my peers in the same academic year but also from blog posts from a year ago. By reading senior blogs and classroom comments, I have gained insight into how times have changed and how the internet has progressed. Additionally, I have learned more than just the content taught in class from the diverse perspectives of everyone, including not only professors but also fellow students and seniors. This is something that cannot be achieved in an face-to-face teaching.
Through this course, I have come to understand the importance of being a digital citizen and have started to contemplate my future career path. I have come to the profound realization that future careers require not only serving the real world but also possessing strong computer skills to adapt to the digital world. This course has allowed me to critically examine our era with a fresh perspective. We are living in a revolutionary era where the emergence of the new world — the digital society — has brought unprecedented speed and advantages, but also terrible consequences. The discussion on ethics and data security in one of the chapters further clarified that there are many “gray areas” in digital society. Every step of progress brings tremendous benefits and countless unseen risks. Therefore, digital society needs stricter and more professional laws to regulate it.
After reading each chapter, I have been inspired to think deeply and have been motivated to write this blog post. As a small social media influencer with 15k followers, I believe that this course has not only improved my ability to understand society but also enhanced my writing skills. As a result, I am confident that I will continue to read articles on Medium to learn more about digital society and this era.
