Yawen Bao

What problem have you wanted to work with?

In today’s society, the speed and the wide scope of the internet makes rumors spread rapidly, everyone from normal people to famous people are plagued by this phenomenon, some people are cyber-bullied even commit suicide because of those rumors. Having seen so many similar things happen constantly, and even intensively, I felt I could not keep quiet anymore, it is not enough to only have discipline, can I do something by exerting what little power I have to slow it down?

What have you discovered along the way?

I found out that the information on the internet is always changing rapidly, different people might receive different information depending upon when, where and whom they get the information from. Aside from making it easy for people to read, several social media platforms break information into pieces which cause the timeline to become blurred and obscure some parts of the original story. Plus, based on the reading materials and the observation of netizens’ behaviors, the ability to be anonymous, as well as the lack of regulation in the cyber world, has encouraged the wishes of people to speak out, so human nature has been reflected to the maximum. What’s more, the development of technology makes social media operation convenient, so netizens don't face much resistance when it comes to the user experience on social media. Based on these conditions, the process of spreading rumors is unavoidably accelerated.

What was the result?

The end products, a website and an interactive device are the results of meeting my intentions through experimentation and design decisions. In my work, I shared my own experience and confusion when I was trying to find out the facts on the internet. The project is open-ended, so that the versions of the story can differ and depends on the individuals, just as how it is on the internet.

What could this mean for society?

I have discussed netizen behaviors and the information fragmentation through this project, to make my audience realize that what they are informed about depends on which perspectives they see from, so that they might become aware of what they see is not the whole fact on the internet. By doing this, this work might help people reflect upon their behaviors on social media, and encourage them to see one event from different perspectives. People would probably make judgment slower, and be responsible for their opinion. Then, hopefully, there would be less rumors on the internet, less cyberbullying happens, and less tragedies in the world.

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