It’s time Facebook, tiktok & other social media came with a warning label

Sometimes what the #internet is doing-worries me & I am talking about beyond the social dilemma. Because while things in India are bad, countries like Vietnam are where you see the best but also the worst of the internet. That’s because high-speed internet is available all across, the majority of the population is below 30 & it’s a mobile-first country. And being a medium-sized country you see cultural influences from across the world-Korea & China in Asia to the USA in the west.

I do not live in even one of the bigger Vietnamese cities like Hanoi,HCMC or Da Nang but a smaller town & even here five things which hit me hard:

1. Vietnam has some of the most beautiful women I have seen but you enter a cafe & these girls aren’t sitting & talking. They are nattily dressed, posing and pouting for Instagram & tinder.

Two girls will be sitting in a cafe and majority of the time they will just be clicking photos of each other, instead of talking, enjoying each other’s company…in the hope that some random stranger on the internet will ‘like’ them & their friends will virtually appreciate them

2.In small towns you see men sitting in cafes for hours on their video game & shockingly watching videos on video games…an analysis of virtual life.

3.Vietnamese kids are quite cute and friendly & the culture has strong family values but I have often seen cases, where a kid will be crying or asking for their parent’s attention & the father or mother, will be either give them a mobile or tablet or will be busy on theirs.

4.The other day while I was sitting in a cafe two young girls in their mid-20s approached me and asked me to take their pic-one of the girls had her birthday. But while taking the photo on her birthday she refused to smile…you see she had slightly crooked teeth..slightly. And by any standards of beauty, she was quite attractive but the poor soul had convinced herself she was not perfect for the ‘digital world’, so much so that even her birthday could not make her smile. I am not sure if I will ever have a daughter but I definitely will never want my daughter to ever grow up this insecure.

5.The last one is quite scary..happening as I speak & something which prompted me to write a blog.

This absolutely adorable kid, probably 4–5 years old is in the cafe with her mother and her mom’s friend. They are asking her to pose,do some actions and they are shooting tiktok videos & even pout.

The worst part is:

For the little kid : she get’s the maximum attention from her parents when she is posing & pouting. And in her impressionable head that’s what she imbibes

For the parent: this is a way of them showing their affection

I was among the first ‘batch’ of professionals to enter the social media/Digital 2.0 industry in India (2007) & got disillusioned pretty quick on how things were operating. Unfortunately, even in my wildest dreams I never realized what the quest for metrics will do to us.

Some internet founders took what could have been great (spreading and talking about ideas-like this perhaps) & instead they focussed on our worst-our fears, insecurities, what divides us instead of what empowers us.

And the worst part we celebrate them as our heroes rather than realizing they are nothing more than modern drug dealers.

The solution:

1. It’s complicated because we allowed this to continue too long. But as a first and necessary step, it’s time tiktok & other social media came with a warning label. Because 40 years back we wouldn’t have opened our cupboards and handed our kids a pack of cigarettes or alcohol but we are doing it today.
2. Technology is definitely not the enemy, it has it’s advantages but we have used it the wrong way. To showcase the superficial rather than the human. The VC & startup community needs to encourage technology which goes beyond the superficial-selfies and videos but allows users to really connect & just not consume newsfeed.
3. The marketing & tech industry needs to stop glorifying content & how it’s the ultimate goal. .Content isn’t bad but the conversation should be on quality and use ,not quantity and virality. We are creating addicts & you may not realize it but some of those could be your kids or theirs

ps-On a side note. I felt so weird seeing the birthday girl being so insecure that probably for the second time in my life I told a girl she is quite beautiful. She smiled.

Photo by Antoine Beauvillain on Unsplash