Is Social Media a Waste of Life?

"Seriously," Alex Ferguson, former football manager of Manchester United, once remarked, "It is a waste of time." In 2011, former forward Wayne Rooney generated much discussion due to his injudicious turn of phrase during a Twitter dispute with a follower. It is noteworthy that Ferguson's candid remarks made during a press conference in regard to Ronney's scandal have garnered notable attention, particularly in Korea. The quote was extensively shared outside of Twitter and adopted from all kinds of Social Media, with its message famously altered to say, "Social media is a waste of life."

 

Why did a significant number of Koreans resonated with this slogan?  Rob Reich, Mehran Sahami, and Jeremy M. Weinstein (2021, p. 16) give convincing answers: driven by a capitalist "profit motive," social media "manipulates our behavior"; pushes us "into echo chambers"; then feeds us "more extreme content." Given that social polarization has become a sensitive issue in Korea, the extreme nature of social media may be a reason why people regard it as a waste.

 

Yet, the explanation in terms of social media' extreme character is not sufficient and further clarification is required. Social polarization has occurred in various contexts, such as news media and online communities, along with social media; therefore, the notion that Social Media is extreme cannot fully account for why the slogan is widely accepted. Currently, it is vital to identify a prevailing factor that resulted in people considering social media as redundant.

 

From the perspective of Ahn's (2012) research, there have been various factors that caused people to avoid using social media, such as distrust in fake news, challenges in navigating social media, apprehension about potential future consequences from current uploads, and other reasons. Jang, Joo, and Shin (2022) proposed that social media users tend to display conspicuous usage patterns, countenancing the idea that the feelings of inferiority and relative deprivation they encounter while using social media discourage them from using it further.

 

 

References

Ahn, M. (2012). 소셜미디어(SNS) 이용거부 요인에 관한 연구 (A Study of Social Media (SNS) Turnoffs) [국내석사학위논문, 高麗大學校 言論大學院 (Master's thesis, Korea University Graduate School of Media & Communication]. Seoul. http://www.riss.kr/link?id=T12868467.

 

Reich, R., Sahami, M. & Weinstein, J. M. (2021). System Error: Where Big Tech Went Wrong and How We Can Reboot. New York: HarperCollins.

 

Jang, N., Joo, J. & Shin, K. (2022). The relationship between Narcissism, Social Media usage motivation and Conspicuous leisure consumption among MZ generation. Korean Journal of Leisure, Recreation & Park, 46(3), 53-64.

 

September 11, 2023

© Lee Sihu (keepedia06@gmail.com)