In this blog post, we will look at whether online communication is true interaction or just simple information sharing through the evolution of social media.
‘Tag’, ‘check-in’, and ‘hashtag’ are terms that are frequently used on social media. ‘Tag’ is used to attach the person with whom you are together when posting a post, ‘check-in’ is used to indicate the location where you uploaded it, and ‘hashtag’ is used to categorize posts by users. The fact that these terms are not unfamiliar to us shows how closely social media has become embedded in our lives. As social media becomes more common in our daily lives, we often see people easily sharing and talking about themselves in the network, forming a different self from the real one. On the one hand, the nature of the internet space, which allows people to easily share and show their lives, also leads to problems such as invasion of privacy. As users experience these problems firsthand, the purpose of use is changing to solve problems, and social media is evolving.
In Korea, the first social media site was called “Damoim.” It was a school-based community where alumni could share photos and stories online. After that, a web page called “Cyworld” was created to make friends with a wider range of people, not just those from the same school. This introduced a system that allowed people to get to know friends of friends, creating a wider social network. Then, the concept of “friend” was expanded again with the creation of a space called “Facebook.” In this space, people could get to know not only friends of friends but also people they didn’t know, and if they had common categories, they could make friends with each other, making it possible to make friends with a wider range of people than in the previous stage. However, not satisfied with this space, an SNS with a more convenient form for sharing information has emerged, and this is ‘Instagram’. Until then, the relationship was centered on revealing one’s identity and spreading out from oneself, but now SNS is a form of sharing information rather than a concept of oneself. It has ceased to see itself as an independent entity and has become a large photo album on the Internet that breaks down boundaries. It has evolved into a system that shares posts that do not reveal the user, which is a clear departure from the previous social media that was busy showing the user’s appearance by uploading material that the user wants to share at a specific time in a specific place.
As social media changes in this way, there are growing concerns. The biggest problem is whether communication in cyberspace is truly communication. However, there is no need to worry about these concerns. Looking at the changes in social media, we can see that in cyberspace, users create their own IDs and use social media by exchanging posts with others, and it is developing in different forms according to the user’s demand. In the early days of social media, when the concept of friends was broadened, users were busy expanding their circle of friends and were eager to promote themselves. As a result, they were busy “showing off” their beautiful and cool selves on the Internet, and spent more time online than in real life to create that identity. However, the recently changed form of social media is not about promoting oneself, but rather has the form of a shared album in a wider space based on the whole world, which was created in response to the demands of users who felt dissatisfied with the previous form. In other words, it is a form that allows users to spend less time on the internet and quickly view only limited and difficult-to-access information and posts.
As social media changes in cyberspace, the concept of communication within it also changes. In the past, communication on social media was defined as asking and answering questions of well-being like traditional communication by checking on friends’ well-being on the Internet. However, since social media was created in response to skepticism about the exchanging of well-being on the Internet that social media in the past was responsible for, it has changed in a direction that omits most of the content that was exchanged in traditional communication. So, how do people communicate on social media these days? People all over the world connected by networks can now access content that they cannot see or feel directly, but indirectly, in the form of shared albums on social media. The act of exchanging content that is accessed in this way can be considered communication, and the exchange of one’s own opinions on the content is also a new form of communication. In other words, the newly defined communication is searching for the information you want, which you cannot get in the real world, quickly finding only the parts you are interested in, and exchanging opinions. Generally, the criteria for judging the authenticity of communication are compared with traditional communication in real-world human relationships, but communication is changing according to the special environment on the Internet and the tastes of users, and it is different from communication in the real world because it has its own new definition and meaning.
Communication in cyberspace is certainly different from communicating with people in the real world. However, this is communication that evolves along with the evolution of social media, so it is meaningful in itself and is forming a new area. Compared to communication in the real world, it is not half-baked communication, but half-baked communication that is building a new area with a different nature from traditional communication in the real world.
