MOVE.

PH
#MovePH: How social media and technology are changing you
The Internet and new media technology is changing the way we think, changing and
playing with the plasticity of our brains, actually rewiring our synapses and,
consequently, changing the way we act.
Maria A. Ressa
@mariaressa
Published 5:52 PM, August 10, 2014
Updated 12:40 AM, August 11, 2014
http://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/27026-tatt-awards-2013-launched
On Friday, August 8, 2014, MovePH, Rappler's citizen engagement arm, won the 2014 Globe
Tatt Awards for Best Social Media Movement. When it was still an experiment on Facebook,
Maria Ressa first introduced MovePH publicly nearly 3 years ago at the very first Tatt Awards.
She was part of the panel of judges in 2011 and delivered this keynote speech on August 26,
2011. This lays out many of the key ideas behind Rappler.
Thank you for inviting me to speak to you tonight about the big ideas that have brought us
all together. The Internet and new media technology is changing the way we think,
changing and playing with the plasticity of our brains, actually rewiring our synapses and,
consequently, changing the way we act.
Its changing power structures around the world Ill give you both positive and negative
examples. And finally, as many of you here already know, it is giving you power the
generation before never had. We live through it every day and take it for granted, but make
no mistake.
The changes are cataclysmic.
Changing your brain's chemistry
Ill begin with you. The first change is physiological. How many of you have Facebook
accounts, Twitter? How much time do you spend on social media? Are you addicted?
Chances are to some degree, you are. Your dopamine levels, the chemical that causes
addiction, increases when youre using twitter or facebook.
Its proven in FMRI imaging studies. Remember, our emotions are really just chemical
reactions and social media is tweaking your emotions by changing the chemical levels in
your brain. Because your emotions are heightened, your expectations and the way you
behave shifts. I first studied this because I wanted to know how people consumed news.
Academics complain about tabloid journalism, but the reality is that its now become the

norm globally. Thats largely because thats the way people in general want to get their
news.
Why? Because the technology we use has kept us on a perpetual emotional high. This is not
just social media but all the interruptions in the modern day world flooding our brains
with dopamine and other hormones like oxytocin helping condition us to like
sensationalism over objectivity.
Anyway, the way you think is different. The reason Im writing a book now is because I
wanted to find out how the Internet has affected my brain. And BOY, it has. As a reporter,
you tend to live on adrenalin, but this constant dopamine fix of social media has a
downside.
We are creating a generation that cant focus, is bad at multi-tasking and lacks
concentration. The upside is were more engaged. Were more social. We can decide with
minimal costs to act TOGETHER. A recent study came out that showed that students on
Facebook dont do as well in school but theyre more developed socially.
So here you are being changed by the media you consume.
While one person can spark or tip towards meaningful change, one person cant do much
on his or her own. You need to harness a group. And for much of human history, scientists
realized that the most number of people we could hold together socially or for any
meaningful endeavor is 150. Its called Dunbars number. Not coincidentally, thats the
average number of friends people have on Facebook. It requires effort and money to get
beyond that number.
Harnessing the crowd
For most of human history, there only existed two ways we can harness human capabilities.
You either create a company or a bureaucracy which requires a lot of capital, money to
hire, create a hierarchy and communicate internally so you can get the group to achieve a
shared purpose. Its the principle behind companies and governments.
The second way is to create markets, which also requires institutions to set rules, maintain
and regulate. That also costs money.
The third way happened less than a decade ago. We now have the power to harness
networks at almost no cost. Let me give you two concrete examples of this: Wikipedia and
A MILLION VOICES AGAINST FARC in Colombia.
The ability to harness networks and move people to action is called crowd-sourcing, and a
development that will change businesses and institutions globally. James Surowieki wrote a
book called THE WISDOM OF CROWDS where he wrote that large groups of people are
smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant better at solving problems, fostering

innovation, coming to wise decisions. He listed the four criteria you needed to make that
happen: diversity of opinion, independence, decentralization, aggregation.
This is the idea behind the citizen journalism program I led at ABS-CBN. Now every news
organization in the Philippines has one, but when we started in 2005, it was a novel idea
since most journalists were wary of mixing with non-professionals. Well, thats another
idea thats been tossed out the window.
Professional journalists have to redefine their roles today because now everyone is a
journalist. Everyone in this room has the power to publish something only large
organizations with money could afford to do in the generation before us.
Let me end with some big examples of the power of crowd-sourcing and social media, new
ways of connecting networks of people. Lets go to the phenomenon of the Arab spring, the
huge protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya. It set off a debate about Facebook and
Twitter revolutions with people saying yes it is, no it isnt.
Regardless of what we call it, the Internet and social media in particular helped ignite
long-standing grievances, broke walls of fear, spread courage and fast-tracked what may
have taken months and years without instant communications all this leading to the
downfall of dictators.
The medium that carries the message shapes and defines the message itself.
Social media movements
Social medias instantaneous nature pushed the speed at which these revolutions
unraveled and spread discontent and courage virally across the region. The first
messages created ripple effects, amplified and pushed further by countless, nameless
people spreading not just the message itself but their emotions what psychologists call
emotional contagion.
Its extremely powerful, and it created protest movements that were difficult for
authoritarian governments to control. Why? Because they were modeled on the networks
of the web loose, non-hierarchical, leaderless. You dont know whom to arrest, no political
parties to tear apart, no underground revolt to dismantle. This is the people, and any
government that fights its people will ultimately fail.
On the flip side, it can also make it easier to organize looting and riots as we saw recently in
London. British officials actually talked about controlling or shutting down social media.
Every powerful tool can be used positively and negatively. I think the earlier we focus on
the positives, the sooner we can think of innovative applications.

So the Internet can bring down governments, empower its people, help spread democracy.
What other things can it do? A lot more. It can help in governance. It can help change
behavior and infuse new meaning into political processes.
For countries like the Philippines, theres a great opportunity for journalists and the people
to come together and help identify needs and push for solutions. Many of you are doing this
now in your areas of influence, but we are envisioning something that puts all our energies
together.
A group of friends and I are now working on a project that aims to evolve journalism and
use new technology to harness citizens for nation-building. We are creating a pilot, scalable
model that can be used in countries like ours with weak institutions and weak governance.
I want to see change in my lifetime, and technology now gives us the ability to do it
ourselves.
If you get a chance tonight, you can see a little of this conversation on Facebook. Visit
Move.PH on Facebook and tell us what you think. Be part of the experiment and watch it
evolve.
Let me end the way I began. Its a time of cataclysmic change. The sooner we recognize that
and embrace it, the sooner we can begin to think of new applications, new ways of doing
things, new systems for harnessing collective efforts the sooner we step into the future.
Thank you, Tatt Awards, for giving me the opportunity to see the work of so many talented
Filipinos who have embraced this brave new digital world. I learned a lot by being part of
this process. Remember, we should be at the forefront of this revolution because we are
officially the social media capital of the world, according to ComScore.
Every day, I wake up and try to assess how the world has changed since I fell asleep. Of
course, the first thing I do is look at Twitter and see what others around the world have
sent me. Social media connects us globally now. How many of you guys saw Inception?
Thats my metaphor for our world today. The Internet is the second level of reality that is
quickly changing reality. What we do in the virtual world is changing the real world.
Congratulations to the winners tonight! You all are amazing and already know first-hand
the power you wield to influence people. Now we just have to make sure we use it wisely.
May the Force be with you! Rappler.com