"Making a wish come true" is a copy heard in a commercial for a certain pharmaceutical company.
It would have been relatively easy to achieve in the days before the abundance of things.In today's prosperous society, where it is possible to get almost anything you want after the period of rapid economic growth, it is becoming more and more difficult to make your wish come true.
With the advent of the Internet, people have come to enjoy various benefits.If you search for something, the trend will be analyzed and an advertisement will be displayed on the screen that suggests "I wish I had it".While it is convenient to gather information that interests me, it reduces the chances of touching things that are not.If this is the case, will we lose the creativity that is nurtured by understanding diversity?
Online shopping is convenient.However, by searching for the desired product by keyword from the beginning, they are unknowingly depriving themselves of the opportunity to encounter products and services that they are not interested in.In other words, although digital technology is convenient, it can be said that it contains great dangers to fostering creativity.
Digital natives know that they can use hashtags to easily and efficiently find and connect with people who have similar values in their hobbies and topics of interest, even if they do not belong to circles.While this makes it possible to easily connect with people who have similar values, it also deprives people of latent values that they are unaware of and opportunities to meet people with new values. It means that there is a trade-off relationship.
If you go out and go to the supermarket, you will see items that you were not interested in.You can also guess what kind of products are sold.
If you go to class and talk with your friends, you can get to information you don't know faster than searching on the Internet.
If you go on a trip, you may get new discoveries by talking with participants you meet for the first time or with people you meet on your trip, and by seeing and hearing at the places you visit.
The fall semester will start soon.I want my students to notice this again.The Internet is a convenient tool to connect with the world.On the other hand, don't forget that it has the side effects of making it harder to connect with people close to you and make it harder to understand diversity.
Faculty of International Communication Department of Tourism Seiji Koyama
⇒ Faculty of International Communication Department of Tourism page
