In a session hosted by David Speers at the South By Southwest conference in Sydney this week, WPP President Rose Herceg and WPP Chief Strategy Office Katie Rigg-Smith discussed an attitudinal study they conducted about attitudes of Australian across a range of topics.
Health, education, the cash less society and social media were all on the agenda in the future looking discussion. Some of the radical ideas emerging from their study included: send parents back to school one day a fortnight, microchip your newborns to know if they will get cancer, encourage more inter-generational living and limit social media.
Some tensions stood out in their report, including that 70% of Australian are not willing to or do not know how to debate key topics.
“Over half of Australians are afraid to speak their minds on social platforms. We don’t know how to debate any more…
Why are young people fearful of debating ideas? “There is a tremendous cancel culture out there… When hate is poured on you, people just retreat from the discussion.”
As brands or individuals, how do we keep track of what people really think in this environment is a question facing society in this environment.
68% of Australians are in favour of some sort of regulation of social media, according to the study.
“Social media has connected communities and done a lot of good, but it has now taken on a life of its own. The idea of some limitations is a good idea… Plus education to help people know what is real and what is fake,” said Katie
“Social media was meant to expand the world, but it has actually contracted people’s views… recognise that it is only one method of social connection.
“If you are looking for a connection to validate your world on social media, you also need a sense of self first.”
The future of social media will be decided by the people. “The audience will retreat if it isn’t tailored to what they want,” said Rose.
The study found that 52% or respondents agree with the statement: ‘I believe social media in its current form won’t exist in 2035 given the potential fake news, fake profiles and online bullying.’
What should social media look like in future? These are some of the trends that the pair saw from their research:
- Remove all anonymity so that people are held responsible for what they post
- Limit your connections to small numbers of people and smaller communities of people who you know
- All social media community groups should be moderated
- All content should be date stamped, so you know what is current
- Some sort of assurance system is needed so you know it is not fake
Focusing on the future of social media, Rose said: “If people are worried about privacy and bullying they will retreat from social media.”
The trends in the report will affect consumer attitudes and are important for advertisers and marketers to keep track of changing attitudes so they can tailor their messages appropriately.
The study comprised 1,255 Australian citizens aged 18+ and was conducted online by YouGov. It is available here.
The report concludes: “The dramatic changes Australians are seeking can be met head on by business – they, along with their brands, have a substantive role to play… If the public and private sector can work together in concert to realise the opportunities beyond the immediate year, then we can make the changes the Australians both desire and deserve.”
WPP is a global agency network across all communications, experience, commerce and technology disciplines.
In another SXSW session, in the AWS presentation room, the discussion was about driver distraction and social media.
Many accidents are caused by driver distraction and fatigue.
Scrolling and social media distraction in cars has increased by 40% in the past year.
‘Seeing Machines’ is helping protect drivers from the risks of distraction and drowsiness. Their technology is scientifically proven to reduce fatigue-related driving events by more than 90%. It uses cameras in buses or trucks that monitor eyes and face and use AI to alert a control rooms to distractions and fatigue or trigger the seat to shake to wake up the person.
“People are sometimes negative about the technology, but the first time we detect that they are about to fall asleep and we wake them up, ask them to pull over and have a rest, we have saved their lives.. they are grateful.”
This technology is being deployed in long haul trucking, mining and bus driving and uses AWS cloud storage to upload live videos to AWS cloud servers, process them quickly at scale, and feed them to a company’s monitoring control room. The process currently takes 45 seconds from vehicle to control room and the aim is to make it even faster, “so that lives can be saved.”
In Europe, where there are GDPR privacy restrictions apply, the videos cannot be stored outside of the vehicle, so a different in-vehicle system is used in those cases. Fatigue and distraction monitoring technology is now mandated in European cars. Driver monitoring systems will also be integrated into self driving cars in the future.
There are so many issues raised in this article.
I want to raise the issue about bullying and regulation.
It won't be a very long-reasoned discussion. I have to get it "off my chest".
In recent weeks a poor child was bullied and harassed by fellow student was harassed by fellow students online and in person at a supposed Catholic school nearby my place.
So much for charity of fellow humans.
The result is the child self-harmed. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 and other mental help as well as an evidence-based AHPRA medical, GP, psychiatric and psychological practitioner.
Anyway in life it teaches me:
* Don't share private information with anyone even if the people constantly harassing and eliciting for information. Such information can be used against you. The victim is constantly victimised and harassed.
The perpetrator(s) don't have any legal right to ask and the victim is under no obligation to answer. They aren't a court of law or any lawful investigators!
* I know a family that have banned their children from mobile phones. The children don't exhibit any behaviours associated by the influence of social media.
On regulation of social media. Though this article did not specify the proposed laws misinformation and disinformation. My concerns are who is the authority to decide what is misinformation and disinformation.
Passing the regulation of misinformation and disinformation to the social media company is the government passing the buck of administering the law to a social media company.
We know already know YouTubers being banned or suspended and the YouTuber having little recourse to due process to solve a dispute.
Consequently passing misinformation and disinformation laws to a private company may violate the due process should a YouTuber dispute to pull down content, get suspended or cancelled.
Furthermore another problem with these laws is the a violation of the rule of law: we don't know what issues are regarded by the government as misinformation or disinformation AND the currency of what is misinformation or disinformation.
Tomorrow, what is regarded as misinformation or disinformation may not be misinformation or disinformation
Clearly the rule of law is not clear and unknown.
Another issue of regulation. When policy makers argue for regulation, they will appeal to children and community safety.
It may well be that asking for a digital ID to access social media is a pretext for track-and-tracing clients.
There may be merit in asking for a digital ID but strong regulation as to the storage and implementation of information.
Otherwise not regulation of the use of a digital ID may violate privacy.
Consequently the information based on the analysis of data associated with the user ID may be used against the user.
That is the information will be used as a way for authorities to control the narrative or narratives on what to think.
Thanks
Anthony, from critically thinking Strathfield South, in the land of the Wangal and Darug People's of the Eora Nation