chapter seven
7 Societal impact
This chapter covers
- Studies on how recommender systems influence our emotions and desire to vote
- The role of extreme content in perpetrating a genocide
- How social media allowed people to organize online
- The influence of social media on news and culture
Broadly speaking, the societal impact of a technology can be described as the change that can be attributed to the technology itself. In the case of internet technologies, we can think about how the modalities of being online have radically evolved in the last few years, evolving from a scientific experiment to an everyday utility. Long gone are the times when electronic mail was the most advanced use of a computer. Nowadays, we can buy almost anything online, use the internet to interact with public services, and have a fully social life online. New careers and professional figures are also possible, such as the content creators—someone being able to sustain themselves by monetizing online content.