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News of peeing toddler distorted by new media
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ON an average day, while strolling in a park near my home, I would occasionally come across a couple of male residents who are relieving themselves right by the path, mostly after a session of mahjong.
There is a toilet nearby, but it takes an intimidating two minutes’ walk to get there.
I have learned to ignore them, except in hot summer, when the consequence of their indulgences can be overwhelming.
But a 2-year-old mainland Chinese child engaged in a similar act in Hong Kong has created quite a stir recently.
On April 15, while the kid’sloving parents were facilitating this effort, one Hong Konger tried to record the scene on his mobile phone. A scuffle, and then a police inquiry, ensued.
The incident went viral and there has been much moralizing about it, both in Hong Kong and on the mainland.
And the emotional sermonizing on the mainland does not follow the usual, well-beaten track of soul-searching about how Chinese should behave themselves as visitors, but how they have been unfairly targeted, in this case by those who are technically their own compatriots.
The first reports were riddled with inaccuracies — the “girl” turned out to be a boy, and there was no assault by the mainland mother trying to grab the camera, as was alleged — after popular sentiments have been aroused.
In our excitement, few people are aware that Internet reports can be deeply disruptive or manipulative. As this event evolved online, the manipulators or the author of the news ceased to be relevant.
Notwithstanding later attempt at clarifications, the first narrative of the event, being more dramatic, is always the one etched in our consciousness.
The original narrative quickly became part of our shared knowledge and the context for basing public discourse.
The Internet age can be tyrannical in dictating the equipment of shared knowledge.
For instance, the Yangcheng Evening News reported on April 23 about a composition by a fifth-grade boy who moralized about the news that a certain Wen Zhang had been unfaithful to his wife.
“I assumed all of you have read online allegations about Wen Zhang keeping a mistress, and Ma Yili expressed no intention of suing for divorce ... disgraceful of him indeed ...” the boy wrote.
Don’t ask me who Wen Zhang and Ma Yili are, for that’s none of my business. But apparently “Wen Zhang being unfaithful” is latest buzzword, gone viral in the cyber world. For some people, that is the world that really matters.
In confronting such news, properly wired citizens are expected to work themselves up to a proper patriotic or indignant pitch, as the case may be.
Some Internet users feel empowered and privileged to participate in such emotional orgies.
Critical thinking
Recently Wenhui Daily devoted a full page package of articles to the question: “Does the Internet make us more intelligent or more foolish?”
These two incidents — the urinating toddler and supposed adulterer — provide interesting footnotes to this question.
Professor Jiang Xiaoyuan from Shanghai Jiao Tong University observes that in considering the Internet as new media, he has not the slightest doubt that “the Internet has made us more foolish.”
Jiang observes that the Internet as a new media tool is growing rapidly in China as a kind of luxury seldom enjoyed elsewhere in the world. According to one survey, early Chinese Internet users tended to be a tech-savvy elite segment of society.
Today 70 percent of the users are at the lower economic stratum, with an average monthly income of less than 2,000 yuan (US$322).
In view of this makeup, it is easy to understand why nothing maximizes the clicks more than a piece of sensational, vulgar, or pornographic news.
Recently sina.com was punished during the national anti-pornography crackdown for hosting objectional works/articles and videos, but a cursory glance of what’s out there makes it clear that targeting only sina.com is vastly unfair.
And in meting out punishment, revoking a couple of licenses and a penalty of a few million yuan is too mild to send a strong message.
Professor Jiang points to a simple fact: people have limited attention spans. Today it is an understatement to talk about an explosion of information (remember how some futurists fantasized about this explosion three decades ago?) — there is a deluge of uncontrolled information.
Learning process
“But your own time is limited. Even if you exist solely for the Internet, and are wired 16 hours a day, that’s about the biological limit,” Jiang said. Where eyeballs count for everything, vulgarity and sensationalism always win the day.
Jiang finds his students are reading fewer and fewer books, while spending more time browsing their e-gadgets. In theory, one can read Hegel and Plato on a mobile device, though that never happens.
If you look around, you will find that most people are watching sentimental TV dramas, playing video games, chatting, or checking their mail. People naturally gravitate towards the most effortlessly entertaining content.
As search engines are replacing memory (with digital Chinese characters making memory unnecessary), we are developing a reliance on search engines for nearly everything.
But without memory and independent thinking, it’s difficult for people to develop the ability to think logically and critically.
As Jiang observed, “The knowledge I have stored in my brain is much more effective than the information provided by the search engines.” Knowledge obtained through search engines cannot lead to true problem-solving ability.
The Internet has tremendously compressed and facilitated the learning process, in defiance of the fundamental principles of true learning, which requires time, patience and determination.
As the two cases of viral news demonstrate, when we lose our power for independent judgment, people come to depend on their e-gadgets to dictate the must-sees, must-eats, must-watches. Their e-gadget also dictate the must-thinks.
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