Misshapen Mentality in the Media

Our Presence Online:

All of us have a different journey on social media; the people we talk to, the profiles we view, the content we allow ourselves to indulge in. The things we choose to read or delete, and how much we let these things affect or influence us.

To control and stay grounded with our presence online we must understand what is healthy for us and the boundaries we should set.

Our use of the internet is to explore, educate and entertain, and in turn it should be go towards making our lives positive and uplifting (although this is often not the case). Using online tools and platforms to our advantage rather than allowing online content to push us down a rabbit hole of anxiety, stress, anger and overall negativity.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, (depending on the content and how it is consumed), the majority of us are heavily influenced by what we see and interact with on-line and we do spend a lot of time online.

Statistics show: – ‘as of 2023, there are currently 4.95 billion active internet users worldwide. Internet users spend an average of 6 hours and 56 minutes online everyday’

This is why it is a necessity we are careful by doing our own individual research, cutting off any negativity, delete whatever doesn’t serve us well and cultivating our time online to be healthy, open minded, and self-aware.

It is more important now more than ever to educate and be thoroughly educated to see between the lines and snap ourselves out of moments if we start spiraling into negativity and conspiracies.

All the above mentioned up to this point of the article can be a challenge (to put it likely).

Social media platforms are built to be addictive, and to draw in the users. Hence the more time the users spend on a platform and the more the platform knows about the users the more they can sell advertising space to companies.

An excellent documentary on Netflix called The Social dilemma delves into these issues in detail and how social media companies manipulate us. If you have Netflix, I recommend you give this a watch.

So, whilst it takes discipline to engage with social media in a healthy approach, the best approach may be to not use these platforms at all, or at least have a strict approach to their use.

AI vs Human

The power these little apps on our screen hold is something to be considered and with the slowly growing power of AI technology being used to further grow commercial aspects of social media to further entice and know the user – must be mentioned when discussing our online lives and the apps we use.

Creators and people of higher status have been using their accounts for years now to dictate leadership, sway people’s opinions, gain followers and attention, or set out a false rumour for drama and the wrong representation of a situation or event.

But such misuse of social media can be super charged with AI.

We are fully entering a dimension where the 4th wall is being broken and AI can learn from our specific searches, interactions, recording how long we view a certain site, picture or song to tally even the deepest of things we thought were private. And in this sense creating a one to one profile for every user in the world that would not be possible without such modern technology. Thus making the online world a potentially more harmful place.

A new level has been reached where AI is so advanced, it can take voice notes or videos of people speaking and create a fake script and sound of that persons voice to make it sound like they are saying something that they never did.

The coming Age of AI

Many people are already using this form of technology to get creative and have fun with it and to be able to sound like other people. Including musicians and celebrities, such as this video that has nearly reached 3 million views:

Following on from a similar situation, another YouTube creator making harmless content but showing how easily you can use actual new AI apps and sites anybody around the world can simply download to make their voice sound like any celebrity:

When you realise the lies and wars that could be created between people or even countries it makes you see how bad it could be for those already in the public eye, such as politicians,  big successful corporations that could quickly be swindled or blackmailed using AI. Or could use AI to defraud large populations or individuals.

“Stephen Hawking famously warned that AI could spell an end to civilization. But to many AI researchers, these conversations feel unmoored. It’s not that they don’t fear AI running amok—it’s that they see it already happening, just not in the ways most people would expect.”

If anything is going to motivate us to open our eyes and be aware of what we are doing when we unlock our phones I think we’ve finally found it.