For many young people, access to the Internet, Smartphone technology and publishing every aspect of our lives online is already experienced as the way that things have always been done.
Yet for those who have lived through the arrival of analogue, then digital mobile phones; analogue internet with the dial-up tone, then broadband and streaming too, the whole process of change feels remarkably quick when looking back. 30 years really doesn’t feel like its been that long.
Unfortunately, a period of change that has been very short when considering what has been achieved in terms of technological development and access, has been remarkably long for the large wheels of government, which have moved at a rate that looks comparatively very slow indeed.
Like it or not, the way we interact with each other and with anyone with whom we have contact has been affected by this revolutionary change.
Social skills that we learned through basic interaction and conditioning with other children, with adults and with the people we met as children has been replaced within a cultural restructuring.
Children are now handed ipads or tablets at a very early age and quickly learn to use the tools that they have been given. Yet in so doing, they surrender much of the understanding and trial and error learning processes that can only come through human and community interaction. They do not develop a robust or rounded set of social skills as a result.
Likewise, the ease with which adults can order almost anything on the internet and the speed that once long winded processes are now bypassed, is for many, a new skill, outlook or understanding that simply cannot be unlearned.
Yet the changes that appear to have significantly improved our lives have at the same time created a strange and unrealistic dichotomy. Ethics or the rules of human interaction with others only seem to count in ‘real life’ when we find ourselves face to face with others. Even these now seem to be being eroded too.
A distance now exists between many people that was never there before. Not with the people we know and love. But the humanity is being lost from the way that we interact with each other in those situations beyond.
The internet has always been a parallel universe that we foolishly assumed would behave in the same way as the ‘real world’ in our lives outside. Instead, the dehumanisation of relationships that was latent within all online technology is now finding its way slowly, but surely into the way we behave and interact with each other in the real waking world.
We only see the tip of this iceburg through the removal of social barriers on the internet. A process that encourages people to attack, criticise and yes, troll other people as if their action will never create any harm.
More often than not, these are people who would never dream of talking to other people face to face in the same way. They do so because they perceive social etiquette to be different online.
Without government taking the steps to govern our use of the internet with a working, open, accessible, but nonetheless safe framework for social interaction and conduct with business, people in the online world are simply going to continue cherry picking what they want to take away from the rules of the real world where we are currently much better at accepting rules when there is an obvious human cost of not doing so.
The apparent ease with which internet giants can appear almost overnight doesn’t give them a free reign to ignore rules the unwritten principles and rules of relationships and human interaction that have developed and governed the way that people behave over a very long time.
If anything, the whole issue of online governance needs to be turned on its head. We must learn to respect the Internet as another part of our already complex lives, and ensure that the rules are no different and that what we do online and especially in the case of interaction with people we never have or may never meet are simply the same as they would be if we were meeting with that person face to face.
Government needs to do this before it too late.
Life is already becoming too cheap as a result of a system which conditions us to believe that we can quickly and easily get our own way.
We must embrace the positive aspects of the internet and smart technology for the benefits that it has and will continue to deliver for us all. But at the same time, we must also recognise the very dangerous and destructive side to this two edged sword and ensure that legislation is created and then evolved to ensure that the Internet really is a tool that benefits everyone and is not just there to be exploited at the expense of others by yet another ‘knowing’ few.
A good Government could begin by:
- Removing the ability of all to be completely anonymous on Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger, Youtube or any other form of social media where commenting and the ability to openly attack anyone or anything is openly involved.
- Ensuring that a system does exist where legitimate anonymity such as whistle blowing or helpful comment and dialogue from those with a genuine desire to help others whilst needing to protect themselves professionally can also exist.
- Creating legislation to ensure that no decision that could affect the future and wellbeing of any individual in any way, such as credit checks & authorisation or CV matching can be fully automated or completed by algorithms alone without human interaction on the part of all parties involved of some kind.
- Creating legislation to ensure that everyone is automatically ‘forgot’ after a period of three years, so that everyone has the ability to legitimately move on with their lives, and only appropriate authorities hold longer term records on any individual or business and hold the right in certain circumstances to disclose.
- Legislating to ensure that any social media or publishing platform builds in detection software that will automatically trigger an on screen flag when formulations of words or topics that might be offensive to others might be involved.
Adam Tugwell 