Personalised, Polarised, and Watched: Growing Up in The New Media Environment
Today, young people face a number of challenges in a new media environment.
The first challenge is mastering the skills needed to take advantage of new intelligent technologies surrounding us, such as the semantic web, big data, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things. These technologies open wide prospects for education and development, but they may also become highly manipulative.
The second challenge concerns how to deal with the influence of these intelligent technologies. For example, web personalisation is presented as a technology that provides personalised online experiences and serves the interests of each user. Personalisation can be very useful if users are fully aware of its impact. It is widely used by Internet companies to offer tailored advertisements based on information gathered about users’ online behaviour. Predictive behavioural targeting is a technology that targets advertisements based on predictions about people’s interests and future behaviour, and offline data can also be incorporated into online targeting. We need to remember that we are not only offered goods or services based on our personal preferences, but also news.
Meanwhile, most people believe that search engines produce objective and neutral results. Due to personalisation, however, people are increasingly less confronted with critical or opposing views, since search engines make it difficult for challenging voices to reach us. Similarly, the structure of social networks contributes to a high level of polarisation in online discussion groups. As a result, people may become trapped in their own way of thinking and locked into their beliefs, prejudices, or stereotypes.
The third challenge is that, despite the high level of web personalisation, information overload has become an immediate problem. Young people need to develop the ability to filter information by importance and to connect fragmented pieces of information in order to form a coherent picture.
We also need to remember that the media not only seek to impose certain values, but are also used to “manufacture” reality. There are numerous manipulative techniques nowadays, such as perception management, video manipulation, deliberate disinformation, cyber warfare, and the creation of false realities. People—especially young people—must be equipped with high-level critical thinking skills to evaluate information from various sources, to search wisely, select carefully, critically assess, and
The fourth challenge is related to security and privacy awareness. Issues such as cyberbullying, personal data protection, and copyright, as well as topics related to censorship, surveillance, and data protection, should be integrated into training programmes. People need to be aware that, for instance, surveillance equipment installed in shops or on streets for public safety purposes can also be used for advertising. They should also understand that they can be monitored even while playing online games.
The fifth challenge is to educate young people about their rights on the Internet. All these competencies should be combined to form a new type of literacy that young people need in order to fully participate in society, benefit from new educational and learning opportunities, and overcome existing digital and social divides.
New competencies and skills are required to avoid succumbing to the manipulations of new technologies. We may reasonably ask: do we want Internet algorithms to direct us to pages that match hidden profiles created about us? Do e-commerce sites alter prices based on our online and offline habits or personal attributes? Information is abundant, yet we are still bombarded with messages that simply reiterate our own views.
