[THE VIEW] Wisdom in Consuming Social Media Content

Addiction to Stimulating Content Intensifies
Wise Decisions Needed from Both Providers and Consumers

Consumers' attention spans are rapidly decreasing, a trend that is particularly evident in media consumption behaviors on online platforms. Recently, short videos like shorts are preferred over long videos, and summarized versions containing the core content are favored over lengthy news articles. As a result, consumers have become accustomed to shorter, more stimulating, and addictive content, tending to prefer 'key' information processed by others rather than directly understanding and interpreting information themselves.

This behavioral change is not a recent phenomenon. For example, technologies such as recommendation systems have evolved to effectively summarize or organize various products or content, providing consumers with more personalized information and recommendations, thereby enabling more convenient service usage.

However, there are concerns that in situations where consumers are easily exposed to indiscriminate information, addiction to content that emphasizes and delivers only short and core messages is rapidly increasing. From a long-term perspective, if people become accustomed to others' interpretations, there is a high risk that they will fail to grasp the overall flow of content and accept others' perspectives as their own rather than engaging in autonomous thinking. More importantly, when the process of others' interpretation is not understood, only hollow knowledge remains. Consequently, people may increasingly seek simple but stimulating content and become addicted.

To address these social issues, responses from various angles are necessary. Although no clear solutions have been established yet, various efforts are underway. California recently enacted a law to ensure transparency of social media content, and New York introduced a law prohibiting social media companies from collecting and selling data of users under 18 for advertising purposes. Additionally, a law is being promoted to ban exposing users under 18 to addictive algorithm-based posts without parental consent.

However, some emphasize the internet’s role as a space guaranteeing freedom of information and oppose such regulations. They argue that rather than banning content, stricter censorship of harmful content is needed to promote a safe content consumption culture.

It is not considered appropriate to demand content providers to offer 'less addictive' content. However, to maintain a sustainable business model, awareness of responsible content provision is also necessary.

These social problems are not easily resolved. Through this article, the author aims not to propose solutions but to express concerns about these social phenomena and emphasize the need for efforts from both service providers and consumers for a healthy information society. As the volume of information continues to increase, the ability to distinguish and digest good information will become even more important. Wise supply and consumption of information and content are more necessary than ever.

Yunseok Son, Professor at University of Notre Dame, USA

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.