Double click for some instant gratification

Double click for some instant gratification

Recently, I have been trying to teach my young daughter about actions and consequences. Stuff like if you throw your toys around they break, or if you draw all over daddy's things he'll throw all your toys away and make you play with empty tin cans for the rest of your childhood.

I think she is starting to get the picture as now she thinks twice before making witch's potions out of mummy's perfume for Halloween.

But even well into adulthood some people still fail to grasp the very simple concept of action equals reaction.

Of course this is not a new phenomenon. People do it every day. Around the world there are people who drive badly, break laws, avoid responsibility, etc, without thinking what the consequences could be. It's just part of human nature.

And this would be fine, if things weren't starting to get worse.

Digital connectivity has become such a huge part of our lives in the last 10 years. In many regards this is a good thing, but at the same time it is starting to change our habits and how we interact with the world around us.

Social media, including networking, online gaming and web boards, now takes up a huge part of our daily lives. There are over 20 million internet users in Thailand, 14 million of which are on Facebook. The average Facebooker spends 12 minutes 26 seconds a day on the social media site. According to digital media analysts TNS the average internet user spends 18 hours a week online. Meanwhile, online gamers spend an average of eight hours a day playing games.

All this time spent accessing social media with its almost immediate response time has led to a culture of instant gratification. We are becoming so attuned to getting what we want, when we want it, that a lot of the time our emotional response takes the lead over what is appropriate.

We have all either posted or know someone who has hastily posted something offensive or that they have regretted on Twitter or Facebook. And we have certainly all seen how online trolls (see the Bangkokpost.com comment section) say things to each other that they would think twice about in real life.

Our online selves live in the "now" with a certain degree of anonymity. But sometimes the lines between online and real life can become blurred.

In two unrelated news stories this week real life has been affected by attitudes brought about by an online culture.

A 14-year-old boy allegedly stabbed his mother to death after she scolded him for spending too much time playing online games.

And in another story a female student and product presenter has been both praised and criticised by the media after publicly outing a would-be suitor on Facebook.

In this particular case the man had posted the comment "elder generous BKK", he continued to comment insinuating that he would like to take care of the girl financially. And when she ignored his comments he claimed she must not be short of money.

The girl in question then went on to post a screen shot of the conversation, including the man's profile name and picture to a popular Thai web forum where it subsequently went viral.

Now, I don't want to talk about the rights and wrongs of either case. Neither would I care to suggest that technology, or games alone are to blame for such behaviour. Violence and lecherous men have been around for millennia.

Instead what I would like to suggest is that impatience brought about by this culture of instant gratification leads people to put actions, in the form of an emotional response ahead of consequences and social appropriateness.

Look at these cases. At the base level what we have is the emotions of lust and revenge, pure and simple. A lust for pleasure through games and women, and revenge when we are denied what we want or when we feel wronged.

A young boy who is never denied satisfaction, which he gets through modern games that offer rewards, achievements and upgrades takes those attitudes back to his real life. His inappropriate emotional response was to stab his mother to death, because that is how he felt at that moment in time. The consequences were never a factor. To be fair in this particular case, it has come to light that the boy is in fact autistic, so that should be taken into account. Although many people suffer from autism, not all of them stab their parents.

The same goes for our horny old man. Would such a man behave like that in real life? Okay, in Thailand maybe, but in general strangers don't ask strangers about their financial situation unless they're after something inappropriate, or they want to consolidate your loans.

The same theory applies to the woman. Would her response have been the same if this had happened at a coffee shop? Would she have stood up and shouted across the cafe that this man was offending her?

I bet neither of them, though their pictures would be in every national paper.

Society is placing more and more importance on satisfying an individual's emotional needs. The issue of "should or shouldn't" is increasingly left on our own shoulders. Shoulders which may still not be big enough for that kind of responsibility.

I am not in favour of banning games and websites and should anyone from the Ministry of Crazy suggest anything of the sort I would strongly oppose them.

I do however feel that a greater importance needs to be given to the effects of new media on our society. Facebook, Pinterest, World of Warcraft, Call of Duty are no longer just hobbies that bear no consequence, they are part of everyday life and we should all be aware of that.

Arglit Boonyai is Digital Media Editor, Bangkok Post.

Arglit Boonyai

Multimedia Editor

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