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Opinion

Technology is a useful servant, but we can’t let it master us or our children

Leonard Cheng says that educators have a responsibility to train children to be conscientious users of technology, particularly social media, to protect them from overuse, false information, echo chambers and social division

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The recently launched Centre for Humane Technology is a US-based think tank meant to draw attention to the negative effects of the internet and social media on children, mental health and democracy itself. Photo: Dreamstime / TNS
Leonard K. Cheng
Technology can be a good servant, but a bad master. The age of instant everything is upon us, as the internet gives us unprecedented connectivity and freedom of information. Our world is one of instant messaging and instant response, instant gratification and instant solace. No educator can ignore the hold of social media on the younger generation.

But such power and promise comes with its own perils. Social media has totally altered the way we communicate. It can bring people together, but also divide a community and magnify its differences. It is a domain where users are not bound by traditional rules, and where it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish reality from myth.

The events of the last two years, including Brexit, Donald Trump’s election and the alleged kidnapping of Howard Lam Tsz-kin in Hong Kong, show how difficult it is to navigate a world dominated by “fake news”. We are increasingly vulnerable to information manipulation by those who care little for the truth. The problem is so prevalent that Oxford Dictionaries declared “post-truth” the international word for 2016. The era of “post-truth” is one in which emotion and personal belief, instead of facts, form the basis for shaping public opinion, making it hard to tell fact from fiction, or rational conclusion from opinion.

WeChat: an app that runs apps, including a fake news debunker

Is social media bad for you? Yes, but we still love it, say Chinese

Cyberspace can be a place of great cruelty, in which people say hurtful things, magnify and spread the hurt without personal accountability. Populist movements that ride the crest of the internet are not known for their thoughtfulness or civility.

In the US, 23 per cent of adults share sensational fake news, knowingly or unknowingly

Overreliance on social media plus lack of vigilance about the nature of information has created numerous “information bubbles” and “echo chambers”, in which people hear what they want to hear. They are immune to criticism or alternative views.

Thanks to Trump, “fake news” has been named by Collins Dictionary as the 2017 word of the year. Pope Francis waded in, soberly dedicating 2018 World Communications Day to the topic of “fake news”. In the UK, the government has decided to go after the tech giants, Google and Facebook included, and is considering how to hold them responsible as news publishers rather than communication platforms. Individual smartphone users, if not vigilant, may unknowingly spread rumours and divide their community.
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