Ethics in the Digital Age

In Ethics After the Information Revolution, Floridi argues the growing homogenization between our physical world and the digital world with the advent of the information age. Growing up with broadband internet and a shared family computer, my childhood was not as connected as those of children growing up today. However I could feel my life sink further into this conglomerate world as more laptops filled my house and internet speeds quickened. The final leap into my digital transition was when I received a smart phone my senior year of high school. With the introduction of handheld connectivity to my life I felt glued to the internet. This is one of the major issues brought up by the documentary social dilemma, the increasingly addictive nature of social media. The film describes how social media is designed with the intent of users spending more and more time online for the sake of ad revenue. In Facebook’s early days, a feed would exhaust itself after you had viewed all the content shared by your friends. These days facebook and other social media are throwing an endless feed of content onto your device based on AI manipulated media suggestions. There are times when I can scroll through my social media for hours without getting out of bed. The Social Dilemma draws attention to how addictive media is usually composed of rabbit holes of propaganda. In the film one of the main protagonists becomes obsessed with conspiracy theories and is radicalized enough to attend a rally. This is paralleled today where many users of social media like facebook and youtube are drawn into radical ideologies for the profit of these tech companies. Although some changes have been made to deter the negative consequences of social media, such as Instagram hiding the number of likes on a picture, by and large social media continues to trend towards the encouragement of addictive social media habits. This is due to the fact that the economic model of advertisements and the incentives for profit are baked into the core of social media companies. Floridi and The Social Dilemma both warn of the increasing prevalence of social media in our lives. The responsibility of ethical technological development lies both with the companies as well as the consumers.