By Jaime Ortega
Beginning in 1450 with the Gutenberg Press the social revolution of literacy took a leap forward. However the corruption and power of the Roman Catholic Church influenced the “dark age” of human progress and innovation.
For millennia information has allowed humans to progress as we collected knowledge about different subjects. Information was obtained through documented experiences. But since the discovery of the electron, information has being hijacked by the speed of self-gratification. This unique system found mostly through the Internet and broadcasting has changed our comprehension and lowered our knowledge of human communication.
What is the speed of “Instant Self-Gratification”?
1) Gratification without the value of time (not waiting) (STG vs. LTG)
Self-gratification is what pushes us to buy products to feel satisfied, forces us to become wealthy and keeps us trying to win every time we gamble at a casino. But when we blend self-gratification with the digital spectrum we use in social media platforms, it replaces basic long-term gratification, which is naturally wired in our brain, with short-term gratification. That long-term gratification is what makes us push ourselves to obtain goals over time. Short-term gratification is what makes us push ourselves to get instantly gratified. Finishing a two-year project is a long-term gratification. Giving a homeless man a few dollars is equal to short-term gratification.
However, more than ever, short-term gratification has taken over long-term gratification. The reason — the emergence of the Internet and the amount of social mediums available to instantly gratify users. Thus, we promote the impatience that these digital spectrums create.
Example: Within the holiday season users can order products online. This will require only a click to satisfy their impatience and there you have it — STG. Fewer people will go check the items they want by driving to various shopping malls, passing over the LTG process that may take several weeks. The latter case shows more patience, despite the fact these shoppers might never find the desired product in any of the malls they searched.
STG= Impatience = Digital spectrum
LTG= Patience = Natural spectrum
Example: Someone posts a cool skateboarding video on Facebook or YouTube. The one who posts will look for STG and impatiently check the amount of “likes” or “comments” he receives. Another kid starts to skate board in the street. After three weeks a man tells him, “I like those tricks” (a case of LTG showing more patient behavior).
Texting is also another STG. One is looking forward to quick reply with no expectation of a long wait.
The problem with STG is that it makes patient behavior obsolete and does not allow us to be persistent in our long term goals without the benefit of incentives every five seconds. In today’s world most people have become STG and set aside LTG. With the use of technology it takes less time to gratify our emotions – there’s no wait.
2) Always winning in the shortest time available
Everyone likes winners. But to be a winner it takes something extra that social media regularly does not sponsor. That is failure. Goals are achieved through experience. Learning from a debacle of errors is what makes our goals realistic propositions, rather than mirages inside a dream. The new generation of social media users can branch out digitally the wins over the losses without experiencing natural failure.
For example: Mariah Carhan dreamed to be a scientist, but she never achieved her goal. When she first started using Facebook she realized that to self-gratify (STG) she could insert any profession of her choosing in the “where I work” tab. So, instead of inserting were she really worked (as a bartender), she typed “works for NASA” to look smart. Mariah became a winner in the shortest time available without ever taking time to get her degree in Science class and going to school.
3) Absorbing fast information without reading content (Content Absorption)
People affected from the demises of this digital generation normally read the headlines of a story online without actually reading through the story. They are thus failing to absorb the content by focusing only on the shell of the topic.
During the golden age of newspapers readers turned the pages of news stories and read content that was moderately absorbed to keep updated about important issues. In the past people read more.
Before the abundance of technology those acquiring knowledge lived with an expectation that time must be dedicated to the increase of information. As opposed to today’s world, information was more technical and valued. Before the age of massive computer availability information was harder to obtain, thus increasing the value of good data. Those craving new strains of information could be satisfied by work and pursuit of data even with the lack of technology.
Dark Ages (PAST) vs. Data Blowout (PRESENT)
During the Dark Ages information was not quantifiable. In other words there was a shortage of data that was on demand during that period. For example, if a sailor owned a complete map of world, showing continents, it was traded for the best price because whoever accessed the best information took strategic advantage toward success over his competitors. Many people that carried such information forced themselves to remember vital documents that would allow them to stand out. The reciters of the Quran in the Eighth Century forced themselves to memorize the teachings of prophet Muhammad.
In today’s world information has boomed to levels where data itself is not taken with the same value observed during the Dark Ages. With such a surplus of information users are less likely to care about vital information, believing all information counts as equal to zero.
Today there are so many platforms available for the public that modern communication has been distanced itself from the forces of print, digital newspapers, radio and television to create a super network of data that is now present everywhere and anywhere.
It is almost impossible for people to remain uninformed, but with great power comes great responsibility. Reality shows that vast inflows of communication don’t make users smarter or more knowledgeable. The following theories demonstrate this:
The Max-Drop Theory
Let’s say for example that you just got a rib eye steak as a gift from your parents. The truth is that you will eat the steak. You will not have the same satisfaction as if you were broke and had struggled to come up with the $25.00 to purchase the same meat at a market yourself .
When one works hard to obtain something precious and scarce, he is going to value what he has more because self-appreciation gets activated! The more people give you, the less appreciative you become. On the other hand, the less people give you, the more appreciative you will become and increase the value of that ‘something’ you acquired on your own.
When something is given you’re less likely to incentivize yourself and you naturally receive less (or no) credit for what you obtained. Your credit is gone; it’s theirs.
The same protocol follows with information. Since information (thanks to digital breakthroughs) is easier to obtain than in the past, people are less likely to appreciate information. There is less incentive to learn about something they can access quite easily without ever learning anything.
Max-out Theory
Imagine for one second that everyone in the world was rich. What would happen with money? The value would go down. Because if everyone had money then money would not be worth anything.
With so much information available on any subject, information has also lost its value. Everyone can access information online, in newspapers, by radio and broadcasts. What the Max-out Theory purposes is that when information is so available it minimizes the value of what is heard. The parallel: if everyone were to have money the Federal Reserve would estimate money to have lost its value.
Ying-Yang Paradox Theory
Pure information is like pure cocaine. It’s extremely expensive in its absolute value. When News Networks obtain the information they require to break a story, they grab the story in its pure form. Next they tamper it with their ideological ingredients before publishing the story or transmitting via television.
A problem of credibility emerges. Who will you believe if Russia, Al Jazeera, Fox News and The Washington Post publish the same story and each with a different interpretation?
We enter the Ying-Tang Paradox. All the networks above claim to be serving the public, but they present different interpretations of the same reality through slanted versions of the pure story. The common reader willingly or unwillingly needs to be aware that either his preferred News Network is bias to interpretation or simply that his information — like cocaine — has lost the value it had in its pure form.
So why is mass communications troubled?
•As people no longer have an incentive to keep updated there is less appreciation of good information.
•There is so much information that its value is null.
•The pure form of information is self-centered among networks which claim to report in the same fashion. However, they speak from a disparity of ideologies. Who can you believe?”
