[Talk] Millennials and Social Media

On February 23, 2018, I joined Dr. Chester Cabalza in a talk held at the Development Academy of the Philippines, which reflected on the 'new media' today - particularly social media. Part of the 'Kartilya Series', we engaged with an audience that was composed of film graduate students and college students from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

My talk, entitled "Millennials and Social Media", discussed the three major social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), and raised questions to the audience, including the blurring of a person's various networks (i.e. familial, personal, professional) on Facebook, the possibilities of alternative identities on Twitter, and the rise of 'the visual' due to Instagram. The talk drew together some themes I raised in some of my essays, such as "In Search of Instagrammable Moments" and "Life and Death in the Time of Facebook".

"Will these social networks survive?" My response to this question, raised by the audience, is tentative, given how we have failed to predict the demise of Friendster, Multiply, and many other web-based entities. The challenge is not so much to prognosticate the future of social media, but to be aware of how rapid changes are - and we often use these platforms without the time to reflect on their ramifications.

[Second Opinion] In defense of the millennials

by Gideon Lasco
Philippine Daily Inquirer

It is human nature to find fault in the next generation. The Baby Boomers were critiqued by their elders for eschewing traditional values, but they in turn critiqued the Gen X-ers for being too carefree, unfocused, even cynical. Although it is fashionable to say “the kids these days,” accompanied with a sigh, the suggestion that the so-called “millennials” are exceptionally different from generations past has little factual basis.

The perceived frivolity of emojis, for instance, can be seen in the context of every generation deploying linguistic playfulness to set itself apart — and adapt to technology. Just as the youth of the ’40s and ’50s inverted words to the annoyance of their ermat and erpat, the youth of today are inventing acronyms and metaphors: I hope they don’t find this essay TL;DR — or worse, boring AF.

Much has also been said about how millennials are addicted to selfies. But self-photography has always been important for Filipinos. In the past, people went to great lengths just to have their self-portraits, even going to studios, and buying albums and photo frames to “display” their pictures — a function now taken over by Facebook and Instagram.

And what of their supposed overdependence on the internet? This I take as a valid concern (more on this later), but take note that every new technology — from electricity to video games — is perceived thus by those who did not grow up with it. Haven’t parents been railing against TV for the past half-century?

Finally, student civic engagement is derided as naive, as if the “grownups” in 1972 viewed the students of their time any differently. Surely, the young ilustrados and the revolutionaries who came after them were likewise derided for their “juvenile” ideas, but today nobody questions the wisdom of Rizal, who incidentally saw the youth as the hope of the nation.

An entire generation defies generalization: There are many “millennials” who do not have access to the internet, let alone smartphones. On the other hand, I know old people who are more hooked to Facebook than their grandkids. However, there are significant social and technological changes today that affect most millennials the most.

Social media, for instance, has created a new way of “separate togetherness:” Folks can be together at one dinner table but worlds apart in their smartphones. It has also created a problematic form of validation—through “likes” and “shares.”

The near-universal availability of information from the internet, moreover, can lead to the complacent idea that everything can be found in Wikipedia, searched in Google, or, as a last resort, crowdsourced through Reddit.

The comforts and technologies of today can indeed engender a sense of entitlement and laziness. But at the same time, they can also create new forms of responsibility. In this age of screenshots and virality, one learns early on to be responsible for what one posts in social media. In an age where teachers can easily check for plagiarism through search engines, one learns that simply relying on a quick Google search for assignments won’t impress anybody. Not anymore. So it always works both ways.

Similarly, while the virtual world may have greatly expanded, the internet has also allowed for an easier exploration of the real one: Traveling and going outdoors have gotten much easier. And while it has given rise to trolls and cyberbullies, it has also given voice to fact-checkers, real-life communities and support groups.

The challenge, then, is to maximize the good and mitigate the bad, of the technologies and trends we are faced with today. And, instead of blaming millennials for modernity’s problems, to think of how education can be responsive in a time of information overload and a dearth of critical thinking.

Throughout this piece, I’ve tried to defend millennials from unfair critique, but critique itself is most welcome. As a millennial myself, I think we need to be challenged more, and so by all means keep challenging us.

Someday, we will also realize our mistakes.

By then, perhaps we would have earned the right to lament the “decline” of the next generation.

Originally published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer: http://opinion.inquirer.net/106053/in-defense-of-millennials

A version of this article appeared in Thailand's The Nation: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/opinion/30322924

Note to self: How to engage with others in social media

by Gideon Lasco

Note to self:

Before you post something online, ask yourself what good can come out of it. Will it inform? Inspire? Educate? Entertain? There are many valid reasons for posting something, but self-praise is not one of them.

Second, always consider the truthfulness of what you're going to share or post. Be discerning, especially when people begin to trust in your discernment. Hold on to facts, to evidence, to logic, and to reason. But don't forget that sincerity is the most important form of truthfulness, for it involves being true to one's convictions, values, and feelings.

Choose your words wisely and carefully. Some words can hurt, but others can heal. Some can divide, but others can unite.

Some people will try to refute what you're going to say. Others will use your words against you, take them out of context, and interpret them in the worst possible light. The natural impulse is to be defensive, but the noble response is to be humble and gracious.

Some people will disagree with your points of view. Others will question the logic of your arguments. Welcome their dissent. Always remind yourself that you can be wrong, so that when others correct you, your response will be gratitude.

Even when you're convinced that you are absolutely right, resist the temptation of humiliating people and rubbing in the flaws of their contentions. It is better to win people's respect and lose an argument, than win an argument and lose people's respect.

Don't let your desire to be proven right get in the way of being nice to people.

Don't let your desire to be vindicated lead you to vindictiveness.

Never fight hate with hate, just as it has been said that one must never fight fire with fire. Avoid posting something out of anger or frustration. If someone insults you, you are no different if you insult them back. Don't forget that silence is oftentimes the best way to communicate dignity.

Draw inspiration from the people who like or share your posts; never take their support for granted, nor be desensitized to their goodwill. However, never make them the sole measure of your success. A popular lie will go viral, but an inconvenient truth may go unnoticed. Even so, truth is always preferable to fame.

Don't give up on social media. When you dwell too much on the negative, you lose sight of the positive. Not all the hatred in the Internet can nullify the fact that life is beautiful and we can see glimmers of this beauty in people's posts that make us laugh and smile.

As for what you write, even just one person who profits from it makes it worthwhile - and you never know what your drop in the bucket will help lead to. Perhaps you will embolden someone far better than you, and you would have paved the way for greatness.

Keep writing. And keep encouraging those who do. You are not alone.

Minneapolis
01 Sept 2016

The parable of the lost cellphone

I used to lose cellphones all the time. I lost my phone to knife-bearing 'holdapers' while riding a jeepney in E. Rodriguez, Quezon City and to a snatcher on a Manila-bound bus from Batangas. The most careless of all when my phone slipped into the sea while I texting on a boat in Coron - an episode witnessed by my friend Olivia Mejia. Helpless, all I could do was post on Facebook that "I may have lost my phone but at least I found paradise".

But there was a time when I thought that my phone was gone, only for me to get it back in a way that helped me appreciate an often-misunderstood part of our country. I was traveling in Maguindanao when, upon returning to Cotabato City, I realized that my phone was gone. At the time, the Maguindanao massacre was still fresh on people’s minds and I have to admit that I felt a bit of unease while traveling in the area. In any case, even if the disappearance happened anywhere else in the Philippines, I honestly thought that there was no chance that I could ever get my phone back.

To my surprise, however, my friend and host in Cotabato - Dr. Zhamir Umag- got a text message from my mobile number that night, with someone saying that he had found my phone. "How can I return it?" the sender asked. It turned out that I had left it on the jeepney back to Cotabato, and it was picked up by someone from Buldon, Maguindanao. Zham communicated with the finder and they made arrangements for the phone to be brought back to Cotabato the next time the finder goes to the city.

I was already back in Manila when the phone arrived by courier. When I opened the phone, I saw various pictures that the finder must have taken using the phone. It revealed a mountainous area and a wooden house (like the one in the picture) that must have been the finder's home. Surely, if he had sold the phone, it would have made for a significant sum. The more I looked at the photos - the finder's young kids, his wife, and their village - the more I marveled at the kindness of the finder.

Grateful, and thrilled, I asked Zham to offer a token of appreciation to the honest finder and his family.

But the finder turned it down, saying:

"Please tell him that we're not expecting any reward. We're just being good Muslims."

Note: I originally posted this photo on Facebook where it went viral, getting over 32,000 likes and 5,400 shares. It was also carried by several news outlets and websites:

"The Heartwarming Story Behind this Viral Photo" (ABS-CBN)
http://rachfeed.com/look-photo-small-nipa-hut-gone-viral-touching-reason/
http://www.thesummitexpress.com/2016/05/gideon-lasco-viral-photo-small-shanty.html
http://www.trendingnews.ph/touching-story-behind-viral-photo/
http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2016/05/please-tell-him-were-not-expecting-any-reward/

The apocryphal Fernando Pessoa and the imagined Pope Francis

I admire Pope Francis greatly, but the “Being Happy” passage attributed to him and going viral in the Philippines is not by him, but is the English translation of a Portuguese text entitled "Palco de vida" attributed to the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa (1888-1935). Interestingly however, his authorship of this work has also been questioned, and Portuguese scholars believe that the text took a life of its own, beginning with a few lines written by a Brazilian blogger named Nox (see this link for a discussion in January 2006 about the authorship of this text). Rui Araújo writes:

Apparently the phrases took own life and spread throughout Lusophone internet with variations in scoring and attribution of authorship. Then someone decided to take a poem (possibly Augusto Cury, author of Ten Laws to Be Happy), paste such a small piece at the end and distribute everything as if it were the work of Fernando Pessoa. It did not take long for my three phrases start popping the network attributed to Portuguese poet (after all, it is always nice quote a famous Portuguese writer who almost unknown Brazilian blogger).

Fast forward to September 2015, and the Facebook page of a Missionary Community of St Paul the Apostle and Mary, Mother of the Church, Catholic group in Kenya, shared the same passages, attributing to Pope Francis - in, as far as I've seen, the first time it's been ascribed to him. See this link for the original post.

This reminds me of the Pope Francis' supposed response to Duterte's "cursing" him. Though it was disclaimed to be "fake news" (see the original source here), the same fake news website noted:

It was made clear by the unknown source that the news regarding the reaction of the Pope to Duterte was all fictional. But that doesn't stop Filipinos from quoting the said website and spreading images of the Pope with the caption:

"I was amazed by the fact that a politician who is aiming at the highest position could be this honest. It was a first encounter for me to see a politician being honest about his concerns for his country other than kissing my hands for the sole purpose of getting the support of the majority of the Catholic population."

If we admire the Pope, let’s not put words in his mouth. And let us be vigilant in this world of social media when all you need is a face and a phrase to put words on people’s mouths.

Here are the original sources of the supposed "Being Happy" words of wisdom by Pope Francis (sourced from this link and checked against other sources):

PALCO DE VIDA (Attributed to early 20th century Fernando Pessoa but widely disputed by scholars)

“Você pode ter defeitos, viver ansioso e ficar irritado algumas vezes,
mas não se esqueça de que sua vida é a maior empresa do mundo. E você
pode evitar que ela vá à falência.

Há muitas pessoas que precisam, admiram e torcem por você. Gostaria
que você sempre se lembrasse de que ser feliz não é ter um céu sem
tempestade, caminhos sem acidentes, trabalhos sem fadigas,
relacionamentos sem desilusões.

Ser feliz é encontrar força no perdão, esperança nas batalhas,
segurança no palco do medo, amor nos desencontros.

Ser feliz não é apenas valorizar o sorriso, mas refletir sobre a
tristeza. Não é apenas comemorar o sucesso, mas aprender lições nos
fracassos. Não é apenas ter júbilo nos aplausos, mas encontrar alegria
no anonimato.

Ser feliz é reconhecer que vale a pena viver, apesar de todos os
desafios, incompreensões e períodos de crise.

Ser feliz é deixar de ser vítima dos problemas e se tornar um autor da
própria história. É atravessar desertos fora de si, mas ser capaz de
encontrar um oásis no recôndito da sua alma.

Ser feliz é não ter medo dos próprios sentimentos. É saber falar de si
mesmo. É ter coragem para ouvir um “não”. É ter segurança para receber
uma crítica, mesmo que injusta.

Ser feliz é deixar viver a criança livre, alegre e simples, que mora
dentro de cada um de nós. É ter maturidade para falar “eu errei”. É
ter ousadia para dizer “me perdoe”. É ter sensibilidade para expressar
“eu preciso de você”. É ter capacidade de dizer “eu te amo”. É ter
humildade da receptividade.

Desejo que a vida se torne um canteiro de oportunidades para você ser
feliz… E, quando você errar o caminho, recomece, pois assim você
descobrirá que ser feliz não é ter uma vida perfeita, mas usar as
lágrimas para irrigar a tolerância.

Usar as perdas para refinar a paciência.
Usar as falhas para lapidar o prazer.
Usar os obstáculos para abrir as janelas da inteligência.

Jamais desista de si mesmo.
Jamais desista das pessoas que você ama.
Jamais desista de ser feliz, pois a vida é um espetáculo imperdível,
ainda que se apresentem dezenas de fatores a demonstrarem o contrário.

Pedras no caminho? Guardo todas… Um dia vou construir um castelo.”

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

“You may have flaws, live anxious, and sometimes get angry, but never forget that your life is the biggest company in the world. And you can keep it from going bankrupt.

There are many people who need, admire and cheer for you.

I wish that you always remember that being happy is not having a sky without storms, paths without accidents, work without fatigue, relationships without disappointments.

Being happy is finding strength in forgiveness, hope in battles, security in fear, love in disagreements.

Being happy is not only appreciating the smiles, but reflecting on the sadness.

It is not just celebrating the success, but also learning lessons in failures.

Not only having joy in applause, but finding joy in anonymity.

Being happy is recognizing that life is worth living, despite all the challenges, misunderstandings and periods of crisis.

Being happy is no longer being a victim of the problems and becoming an author of history itself. It is crossing deserts outside of yourself, but being able to find an oasis in the secret of your soul.

It is thanking God every morning for the miracle of life.

Being happy is not being afraid of your own feelings. It’s knowing how to talk to yourself.

It’s the courage to hear a “No” and be confident enough to receive criticism, although sometimes untrue.

Being happy is to let the child living within us to live free, happy and simple.

It is having the needed maturity to say “I was wrong”.

It is having the essential courage to say “forgive me”.

It is having the indispensable sensibility to say “I need you”.

It is being able to say “I love you”.

It is having the humility of receptivity.

I want life to be a hotbed of opportunities and that you be happy. And when you go astray, start again. This way, you will find that being happy is not having a perfect life, but using tears to irrigate tolerance. Using losses to refine patience.
Using failures to reach prayer.
Using obstacles to open the windows of intelligence.

Never give up hope.

Never give up the people you love.

Never give up on being happy, because life is a no-miss obstacle, even if it gives you dozens of reasons to demonstrate the contrary.

Stones on the way? I keep them all … One day I’ll build a castle!”

Social media and the 2016 elections

by Gideon Lasco

How exactly will social media shape the upcoming elections?

It was US president Barack Obama who demonstrated the usefulness of social media in 2008, when his campaign used Facebook to penetrate young people’s social networks and encourage them to vote. Two years later when Noynoy Aquino ran for president, social media was not as big in the Philippines: in mid-2010, there were only 10 million Facebook users in the country, compared to 40 million today.

The 2013 elections did attract the attention of netizens - remember the Nancy Binay memes - but it was a mid-term election, sans the fanfare that usually accompanies the vote to determine the highest office in the land. With the presidency at stake, 2016 is promising to become the most “trending" of Philippine elections. Here are some ways social media is making its mark:

A more participative platform
Social media is a platform for candidates and voters alike to engage in the political process in a more direct way. Through their fan pages, candidates can directly share their thoughts and photos without being filtered by traditional media. As Mar Roxas learned in his “happy anniversary” faux pas (a topic I addressed in “Social media advice for Mar Roxas”; PDI 09/15/2015), social media engagement has its pitfalls - but it can also be a rewarding way to connect with voters, especially the youth.

Voters, for their part, through their posts, comments, and annotated “shares”, can influence their social networks - a hypothesis that has received support from a 2012 study published in Nature, which demonstrated that what Facebook users see in their “news feeds” can affect their voting patterns. While others have argued that it has only amplified partisanship (i.e. we only read and share the articles we agree with), it has undeniably made the public more involved and aware of what’s happening.

Aside from expressing ideas, the direct access to (and by) the public can be a tool for change - as showed by the anti-pork “Million People March” in 2013, largely organised through social media. Though the “million people” did not materialise, it nonetheless offered a glimpse of what social media can enable.

(Mis)information wars
Websites and Facebook pages can easily be set up, and made to look like respectable news outlets, while subtly espousing an political agenda. Of course, already-established websites and blogs are not immune from the influence of politics and can also contribute to misinformation.

Sometimes, the truth will be sacrificed for the sake of virality. Articles will go for the shareable, the scandalous, the dramatic. They will follow the format of articles guaranteed to attraction your attention (i.e. “Ten reasons not to vote for Binay” or “The shocking truth about Grace Poe”).

But social media can also offer a venue for people to fact check the information they’re overloaded with. In the US, websites like FactCheck.Org are fulfilling this role, and their articles are widely shared in traditional and social media.

Cyber-‘hakot’ and online vote buying
As of this writing, Binay has 230,000 Twitter followers, Roxas has 505,000; Grace Poe has 45,200. In an age when influence is measured by the number of followers you have on social media, expect this numbers game to be closely watched - and contested. Through paid-for “sponsored posts” in Facebook and Twitter - and with the help of online entrepreneurs who “sell” likes and followers - candidates can appear more influential, more famous, and yes, more vote-worthy (everybody loves a winner).

It is not just “likes” and “follows”; even comments can be manufactured or “planted”. One study showed that 1/3 of all customer reviews and comments online are fake, and it won’t be surprising if the same can be said of political comments.

These, of course, are old political tricks, the logical extensions of the “hakot” crowds and actual vote buying employed in traditional politics. But they also raise issues of legality and transparency:  can the COMELEC keep track of campaign expenditures online, and monitor cyberspace for violations?

Will Facebook ‘likes’ translate to votes?
Ultimately, it will be the actual votes, not Facebook ‘likes’ - or Twitter ‘favorites’ - that will matter (that is, of course, assuming that vote buying isn’t a factor). Though it is projected that 60% of Filipinos will have access to the Internet by 2016, it will not be representative of the population: the poor and those living in rural areas will be underrepresented. Thus social media sentiment - or online surveys, for that matter - cannot be taken to be the voice of the nation.

But social media itself can increase voter turnout  by turning the elections into a social, shareable, fashionable activity - a phenomenon that some scholars call “digital peer pressure”. In the same 2012 study I cited above, another key finding was that people were more likely to vote if they saw a message showing their Facebook friends had voted.

How else will social media affect the elections? Will an ingenious campaign jingle, “break the Internet”? Will a YouTube video or a tell-all blog post, revealing a hitherto unseen side of a candidate, go viral days before the elections and affect his or her chances? Because of its relative novelty - and the ever-changing world of Philippine politics - it is unwise to make further predictions.

All we can say at this point is that social media will definitely be a key battleground where the elections will be fought.

What is a rant? Reflections on social media negativity

by Gideon Lasco

Ranting is such a common behavior nowadays that many rants are devoted to ranting. In our age when expressing one’s opinion is as easy as typing a few lines and pressing a button, no one wants to be called a ranter - or a whiner or a hater - but a lot of people actualy rant without acknowledging that they are, in fact, ranting. Thus many people, overwhelmed with the negativity, are distancing themselves from Facebook; while some go on a “social media holiday”. One of my friends has even deactivated his social media accounts completely, lamenting that the world has been ran over by a “generation of ranters.”

But what, exactly, is a rant? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a rant is “to talk loudly and in a way that shows anger; to complain in a way that is unreasonable.” This definition is a good starting point, telling us that a rant is a way of communicating or complaining that is (1) loud (2) angry (3) unreasonable.

How can one be “loud” in social media? The most obvious is the lavish use of ALL CAPS, but there are other ways to be loud. Making use of a photo, for instance, makes one’s message “louder” - images can be very powerful and memes are the poetry of our time. Ranting goes for the dramatic, the sensational.

As for “anger”, we can easily see this with the choice of words. Curse-words - although their currency has been grossly inflated and they don’t have the same gravity anymore - are staple fare for rants. But a rant can also incite to anger by insulting others through witticisms, name-calling, or logical-sounding arguments. Directing the anger at someone also makes it more weighty (so-called “open letters”), and ranting is at its best when it is not just angry, but accusatory.

The crucial test of ranting, however, is whether something is “unreasonable” or not, and this is where its subjectivity lies. Many Filipinos won’t say that the Philippines is ranting about the Spartlys dispute - we would think that our claims are reasonable, and our anger warranted. Neither will many consider as mere “rants” the online posts expressing outrage over repressive regimes that gave rise to the Arab Spring. As these examples show, one man’s “rant” is another’s “grievance”.

Perhaps the non-confrontational attitude of Filipinos makes social media a particularly suitable venue to express our sentiments. Psychologist John Suler termed this the “online disinibition effect”, which draws from the sense of anonymity and distance to free people from their inhibitions, thinking that there will be little backlash for what they would say.

Rants are oftentimes signs of helplessness; people do not rant if they think there are other ways to communicate their message. Indeed, ranting satisfies the need to release one’s negative emotions, while at the same time offering the chance that the addressee would actually listen. On the other hand, oftentimes enmeshed in this need to communicate is a desire to get noticed by the social media universe; the desire to go viral. Thus instead of being a last resort, it becomes the first. Consequently, it feeds a culture of outrage, where attention is validation.

***

IN THE multitide of ideas and sentiments floated on social media, there are many ways to stand out. You can inspire people with beautiful pictures, enlighten them with a well-written thinkpiece, or make them laugh with your pet’s funny expressions. Psychological studies, however, have shown that “negative emotions are more contagious than positive ones”, as Finnish scholar Harri Jalonen puts in. This “negative bias” makes it understandable that many people resort to ranting.

The criteria for reason, however, should give us pause for what we label as “rants”. While some posts are clearly rants, there simply is no objective criteria we can apply for the “reasonability” of every post. During the APEC week, when people in Metro Manila were thrown into miserable traffic conditions, I observed that the people who experienced the traffic themselves “liked” and “shared” posts that gave voice to their predicament, while those living elsewhere were more likely to dismiss them as “rants”. This subjectivity of what constitutes a rant reminds us that in the act of labeling people's viewpoints (either as rants or “painful truths”; “whining” or “telling it like it is”), we engage our own ideologies, politics, and (limited) knowledge.

We should strive to move away from a “ranting culture” by delivering our messages in a way that does not incite people to more anger. If social media is social, then we must abide by social conventions: respecting others’ points of view, not taking different opinions personally, and if called for, arguing with reason, not with anger. And if social media is media, then we are all journalists now, and if we express outrage, we must do so with a committment to truth and fairness.

As for those who are in the receiving end of a rant, we should likewise exercise restraint - as well as an openness to what might actually be a valid argument. Dismissing something as a “rant” will only inflame its source. Ranting about a “rant”, like fighting fire with fire, is equally unhelpful. The cycle of ranting, ranting about ranting, and so on, ends when someone on the receiving end of a rant reads through the rant and tries instead to find out where it’s coming from.

Do we, then, need a new set of values - in this age of social media? I don’t think so. I think we just need to bring back the old ones - starting with humility.

Manila
December 11, 2015