The Paradox of Digital Society
The presence of IT and the internet on the one side may offer facilities, but on the other side the wild and uncontrolled growth of digital society is even likely to create a grave tragedy of humanity.
Paradox, inconsistency or polarity are basically the terms to describe a contradictory situation, something that frequently is referred to as an irony.
What is meant by the paradox of the growth of digital society is a situation of an ambivalent, even contradictory nature, when people are entering the era of digitalization and the use of the internet is even more massive.
On the one hand, the growth of digital society is very much expected because it offers many promises to serve as an access to the realization of justice, prosperity and freedom for the public in this digital era. However, on the other hand, the growth of information technology (IT) and the massive utilization of the internet turn out to give rise to various social problems that raise increasing concerns.
Instead of creating a prosperous, just and democratic social life, the side effects of the growth of digital society and IT even cause the emergence of digital disparity, the spread of hoaxes and hatred remarks, cyberporn and not infrequently the incidence of social dehumanization.
Paradox, inconsistency or polarity are basically the terms to describe a contradictory situation, something that frequently is referred to as an irony.
Christian Fuchs (2019) indicates that in the era of postmodern society like today, the presence of digital technology in many countries has indeed transformed the world, offering a form of new community, encouraging the growth of the culture of netizens’ more active and creative participation, of online activity and at the same time the cultivation of democracy.
Nonetheless, what happens is not always as promised. The presence of digital technology along with the accompanying social infrastructure is just aggravating the depth and expansion of domination through new forms of control -- often beyond public cognizance. It stimulates the occurrence of digital dehumanization, the appearance of free digital labor and the control over society far from the essence of the culture of public participation as promised.
Paradox
At present, the public seems to be faced with various dilemmas. The anxiety over the side effects of IT and internet developments not only causes confusion but also fear, lest we might experience a future as depicted in the Hollywood film Terminator, in which artificial intelligence reigns supreme and robots run wild beyond control. They are more powerful than humans, attacking and even killing men.
Although IT does not kill in literal terms, behind the various facilities offered there are actually some threats: killing humanity, merely offering illusions and only spreading fantasies of quasi-freedom. Daniel Bell (1977), said to be the first sociologist to study the social impact of the growth of digital communication media, has long revealed the different problems arising from IT growth.
According to Bell (1977), there are two main indications of the growth postindustrial society, which are the invention of electronic and optical miniature circuits capable of speeding up the flow of information through networks, and the incorporation of the process of computerization and telecommunication into integrated technology that is termed communication. For people still unprepared and unfamiliar with the utilization of such rapid IT advancement, there is certainly the risk to be borne.
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Manuel Castells (1996; 2000) has stated that computers and the flow of information have changed the world and posed various socio-economic and cultural problems that characterize the growth of contemporary modern society or postindustrial society. According to Castells, the world is now entering the era of information in which diverse advancements of digital information technology have provided the material basis for the pervasive expansion of what is called “forms of networks of organization” in every social structure.
The internet integration into sphere of life has created new forms of social identity and inequality in society, making power part of the current of decentralization, at the same time producing new forms of social organization pivoted on the power of information. Who controls information is the one holding power.
The era of information revolution, apart from being marked by the growth of super sophisticated IT, also brings about what experts call virtual real culture, a new socio-cultural system in which reality itself is fully contained: encompassed in the cyber-image setting. It is a world of fantasies, in which the images are not only on the screen where the experience is communicated, but they have become the experience itself (Ritzer & Goodman, 2008).
People who originally interacted in a real space and in person, with the presence of the internet can now interact with whomsoever online, without being limited by values and norms. Therefore, those who are developing relationship in computer networks inevitably are also growing with their typical subculture, which is far different from that of conventional society.
In the era of postindustrial society, social reality is practically dead, only to be taken over by realities of a virtual nature, which are cyberspace and also metaverse realities. The new world mediated by the presence of more advanced and super sophisticated IT has turned out virtual things, virtual culture and virtual community.
As shown by Piliang (2004), in the era of information revolution people are indeed still interacting with each other, but now it is no longer in a real community but rather in a virtual community. The internet as a network of global communication and information has offered its own typical form of community (virtual community), form of reality (virtual reality) and form of space (cyberspace).
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People capable of adapting and utilizing IT properly will mostly survive and even prosper. Conversely, those who cannot afford to buy and possess no IT, thus incapable of accessing information in the cyber world properly, inevitably face the risk of being sidelined and experiencing marginalization.
Quite a lot of people who are unable to access information and utilize gadgets later enter the circle of increasingly chronic poverty. This is the paradox of the growth of digital society, which necessitates us to be cautious in responding to the presence of IT and the internet.
Side effects
Broadly speaking, the paradoxical situation and side effects of the expanding growth of digital society have caused tremendous changes in different fields of public life such as in economic, socio-cultural and political sectors.
First, in the economy the widespread use of IT and the internet produces an ambivalent impact. For economic players already established with no difficulty in investing in electronic gadgets, the opportunity offered by the digital economy is obviously very profitable. As stated by Christian Fuchs (2014) in his book, Digital Labor and Karl Marx, capitalist domination will not end despite the change to the digital era. With expertise and the support of huge capital owned, capitalists will be able to maintain and even further expand to seize new market niches. During the COVID-19 pandemic, giant-scale economic players have had even greater market control on average.
Through e-commerce and digital economy, the Indonesian economy is in fact predicted to become a new world economic power in the coming years.
The development of economic sharing said to be a bridge for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to expand their market share is not always promising. So, MSMEs product suppliers to websites selling online goods indeed appear to make profits at a glance, but is the profit margin sharing between MSMEs and capitalists as digital economic players quite fair?
Through e-commerce and digital economy, the Indonesian economy is in fact predicted to become a new world economic power in the coming years. Based on the analysis data of Ernst & Young, the value of online business sales in Indonesia annually grows by 40 percent. The latest survey of the Indonesian Internet Service Providers Association (APJII) in 2022 reports an increasing number of internet users in Indonesia from 175 million to 220 million. Their market share is definitely very promising.
The problem is how far are small-scale economic players still unfamiliar with IT utilization capable of entering and competing in the capitalist economic system that is highly competitive and rigid? Cases in many regions have proven that small and medium businesses generally experience marginalization and lose in competing with more established economic players already familiar with IT and internet utilization.
Second, in the social field the more pervasive use of IT and easier internet access, while offering facilities, also carry the risk of resulting in various undesired social impacts. A study by ESPAT (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography & Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purpose, 2020) has found that accessing the internet during distance learning turned out to create the chance for acts of sexual crime that threatened the safety of children. Out of 1,203 children from 13 provinces interviewed online during the pandemic period, 287 of them had bad experiences when surfing the cyber world: receiving indecent messages, pornographic pictures/videos and invitations to talk about things that made children feel uncomfortable.
Chaterine Chak (2003) has discovered that the use of the internet among teenagers tends to be highly risky. Besides playing games, teenagers usually are surfing information and chatting. Even the internet is frequently used to access porn websites and have sex talks. Quite a number of them are addicted to opening porn sites when there is no parental control.
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Parents have also expressed their concern over the widespread use of cell phones and the internet because children tend to be more often absent from school and spend more time on playing games. The behavior of some children has changed. Those who were previously diligent, smart and cheerful have since their internet addiction become taciturn, solitary and reserved.
Third, in the political sphere, the extensive use of IT not only serves as an easy means of uploading hoaxes and hatred remarks, but frequently also becomes a media for spreading radical ideas and intolerant views that spoil social harmony. When the circulation of radical content gets more intense and endangers social integration, various ways are attempted to eliminate the risk that arises.
Expecting netizens to be able to screen the dangerous content themselves and then avoid viewing it is considered no longer easy to do. Postmodern people, already accustomed to and increasingly watching Youtube, admittedly constitute the group most vulnerable to being influenced by the radical content recorded in various short videos. Many studies have proven that the circulation of radical content via social media exposes netizens even more to radical views.
Juggernautmodernity
We agree that the presence of digital information and transformation society is an inevitable process. We realize that digital transformation is a process that we should develop to anticipate the changing era. Yet the determination of the direction of digital transformation in order to go through the desired corridor is not simple. Many developments must be encouraged to serve as the foundation so that the digital transformation will not turn into what Anthony Giddens (2005) terms juggernautmodernity that produces a destructive effect on various substructures of public life.
Giddens is a modernity theoretician who has long warned of the risk or impact that may result from the advancements of technology and modernization. The presence of IT and the internet on the one side may offer facilities, but on the other side the wild and uncontrolled growth of digital society is even likely to create a grave tragedy of humanity.
Rahma Sugihartati
Rahma Sugihartati, Professor of Information Science, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Airlangga University
This article was translated by Aris Prawira.
