Mohamed Ibrahim Mousa

201600903

Reflective Essay 3

Reflect upon the phenomenon of social media in light of Plato’s allegory of the cave. Is social
media a liberator from or an enforcer of the cave? Is there any implication one can reach
from such reflection?

Social media became one of the most effective modern sources of news and information among
the public. I think its power mainly comes from the fact that anyone could deliver his/her
opinions in the form of posts comments and likes or other names for other sites. Such allowed
interaction conveys somehow a sense of familiarity. Accordingly, a large proportion of people
take social media as their standard source of knowledge about current affairs and, more
frequently, the social lives of other people. Social media popular platforms are not restricted to
topics. They do not require a reference or source for what you claim. Such restrictions would
make them viewed as over constrained sites which do not appeal to the public. This observation,
in my opinion, is the main source of all the disadvantages of social media as a source of
knowledge although it may be an advantage in some contexts.

The first reason why I think social media can act as an enforcer of the cave is the cherry picking
process. People, in general, tend to have a mental image about how they would like to appear to
the world. Such image affects what they choose to post on social media platforms. Take for
example someone who wants to appear successful. He might not even be aware that this is the
image he wants to depict. However, subconsciously, he would only post what confirms this
image. Same applies for various set of images: beautiful, intellectual and powerful images for
example. These images are probably associated with a mechanism of marketing oneself as a
good individual by the different senses of the word (I like to think of it as a crucial aspect of
evolution). The problem is when people take social media as a reference for the social lives of
other people. They would arrive at conclusions far apart from reality because; these conclusions
are based on what other people want to appear not how they really are. In this sense, social media
impose an extra layer of shadow on the perceived reality. You perceive the shadow of the
perception of someone else’s image of their life. That image is a shadow of reality in itself. This
unintentional misrepresentation of reality acts as an enforcer of the cave in this case.

The false image of people’s lives illustrated by social media was taken to another stage when
business came in. We talked about how one may only pick specific incidents to show to his
audience. These incidents are only those which confirm his predetermined image of himself, here
the situation is quite the opposite. Business companies create images that appeal to the audience,
not to the companies. They design a certain character and attribute features to it that attracts the
attention of the targeted segment of the audience. Then this character is sold as a real person with
a real spontaneous life. It is more like Kim Kardashian show. Accounts are designed to show
their owners as extremely fashionable and who live a thrilling life for example. A similar
category is the accounts of the celebrities. There, social marketers play a great role in producing
a certain useful image to the fans. The problem again is that many people take these accounts as
if they represent real content. They may think that this is an applicable way of life and that they
lack in many things. Such accounts have observable effects on fashion trends for example. In
addition, they could be used to manipulate fans’ to serve economic or political interests. It is
their aware and intentional false representation of reality that causes this second category of
social media accounts to be again an enforcer of the cave.

Last but not least, social media take responsibility for a great deal of fake news. Things are mad
there! And I may put it more adequately as: “people are mad there!” When one thinks about
these “news” he could not but laugh! Examples to the fake news on social media are numerous
so I preferred not to include them as the phenomenon is well known. As I mentioned in the
introduction paragraph, there is no obligation to put sources to anything so you can claim
whatever you want. And literally, that is what happens. You find tons of poorly edited photos
that are claimed to be proofs of fake news. Political aims particularly play on this point because
fake news could effectively change the opinion of the public, divert it from an important issue or
produce some desirable mental state (as fear, hope or national pride). This may be the most
compelling reason to think that social media are indeed an enforcer of the cave. If you followed
the lead of this fake news, I assure you that reality would be hidden far away from you. The
majority of what you see, hear or read will be completely false. At least, it will not be accurate
and true as you might like to think. One who accepts social media news without critically
evaluating them would live in a deep dark cave. And all he would see is the shadows not even of
real objects!

We have summarized the main reasons why social media is an enforcer of the cave rather than a
liberator from it. However, in many crucial cases, they were just the opposite. For a specific
example, in the period before the 25th January Revolution, social media were the only channel
for news which was intentionally hidden by the local authorities. The liberty by which anyone
could post news was here the very factor that made social media a liberator of the cave. This fact
was most pronounced by the renowned incident of Khalid Said. Social media, supposedly,
ignited the spark of the revolution after this incident was widely spread on a national scale. Apart
from historical incidents, social media continue to provide news which is not accessible by the
conventional TV-based media. News and information about personal events, for example, are
better delivered by social media. One might learn a great deal about real people by following a
more or less credible source as Humans of New York Page or others [1]. Such information
liberates people from the simplistic view of the world produced by conventional media and
press. In this sense, social media is a great liberator of the cave. They were once hoped to be a
liberator of people!

Looking at the whole picture, it seems that your attitude towards social media is what determines
how it will act as an enforcer or liberator from the cave. If you blindly accept popular news or
information, you will find yourself straight at the bottom of the cave. Such a false perception of
reality is hazardous. It might drive you to take unguided decisions or seek a form of life that does
not exist or does not suit you. The excess use of Social media is therefore linked to depression
[2]. On the other side, treating social media posts as not God-given sources would make them a
liberator of the cave. You could benefit from the ample sources of information and news. If you
critically analyze and filter what you read, you might end up learning something new even from
fake news. You might, for example, know that the dominant political system is trying to deliver a
certain message when you see a certain post from a certain page. If you are well informed of
linguistics or sociology, then social media are a treasure rich with many phenomena. You may
know about the individuals’ desires, hopes and beliefs just by observing the way they interact on
social media. Accordingly, if you acted wisely, you would learn a lot about the other subjective
views of the world which is important to evaluate and balance your own view. Social media
teach a lesson on how people could be deceived easily. It is true that for most people Social
media is an enforcer of the cave. However, individually, I think it is your personal attitude
towards social media that determines how it will enforce you to the cave or liberate you from it.

References:

[1] Facebook.com. (2018). Humans of New York. [online] Available at:

https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/ [Accessed 27 Oct. 2018].

[2] Lin, L., Sidani, J., Shensa, A., Radovic, A., Miller, E., Colditz, J., Hoffman, B., Giles, L. and
Primack, B. (2016). ASSOCIATION BETWEEN SOCIAL MEDIA USE AND DEPRESSION
AMONG U.S. YOUNG ADULTS. Depression and Anxiety, 33(4), pp.323-331.