Last Updated on April 8, 2011

There is a thin red line which links the alleged stability of the so called western world, with the instability of the middle east and it consists once again in the opposite role that mobile technologies and social network play in these two different regions of the world. In few words one might say that these technologies contribute to maintain stability (and maturity) in mature countries, and to enhance the level of liberty and awareness in immature countries.

Few posts ago, I just identified one of the reasons for the instability of the Middle East on the role played by mobile technologies and social networks in feeding the protests in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria, essentially contributing to make the younger middle-east generations aware of the discrepancies between their lease of life and that of their occidental peers, and hence acting as a wind capable of propagating at an unprecedented speed the flames of change raised from the Maghreb. In my articles I referred to the effect of these new technologies as Mobile Warfare.

If, for a moment, I turn my head to look at the West I see an opposite situation, unleashing an opposite role for Mobile Technologies and Social Network which, in this context, differently from Middle East, are contributing to maintain social stability, even in a quite complicated economic situation like is the current European situation (and the last events in Greece, Ireland and Portugal are an evident thermometer of the boiling economic situation in the Old Continent). Of course I would not mind to apply the ancient Roman motto “panem et circences” (bread and circuses), luckily for this scope, our society invented football, anyway even if we do not want to bring in football, there are two other factors which, in my opinion, play an important role for our (in)stability: the wish to catch the last tweet or, even better, the last Facebook status update, but also, for most mature generations, the continual rush to the last techno-gadget.

First of all, the rush to tweets or (most of all) status updates is something which affects primarily younger generations (even if the potential of Twitter is pretty much under evaluated in Italy) but, like it or not, it is something which must be kept under serious considerations.

Of course, there are two opposite ways to read this statement: a negative interpretation could lead to think that younger generations are too much addicted to social networks and mobile technologies to the point of neglecting most important problems, on the other hand a positive interpretation could lead to think that social network and mobile technologies allow to share news and information, making them accessible to a greater audience, in formats comprehensible by (and adapted for) different population groups and heterogeneous levels of culture, contributing to create mature citizens. Of course my scope is not to determine which of the two interpretations is the predominant, rather than to highlight, like it or not, the significant role of these media.

Something similar applies if we move to most (im)mature generations, since, also in this case, Social Networks contribute to share information and (in theory) to spread a most mature approach to Society. For this population group an additional factor is involved and it is represented by the rush to the last techno-gadgets which have become a status symbol: nowadays our iPads, iPhones, Android devices, etc. highlight the role of the individual on the society, in a certain manner as a luxury or sport car does, with the difference that the last Android or iPhone is (at least in theory) much more accessible.

If one analyzes this picture from a more global perspective, one finds that mobile technologies and social networks may be assimilated in every way to real weapons: in immature countries they may be used to fight wars for freedom versus authoritarian regimes (as happened in the near past in Maghreb and as happening in Syria or Bahrain), in the same time they may be used in mature countries by wise governments to maintain order and stability, or, unfortunately, also by subtle governments to reduce population to (psychological) servitude.

We know what it means to use “mobile warfare” to fight wars for liberty versus authoritarian regimes: just watch the news and hear the latest events coming from Libya. Very different is the case of mature countries. In these nations, using these (mobile technologies and social networks) weapons to maintain order or stability corresponds to make a wise use of them to keep citizens informed and to create a common mature awareness, using these weapons to reduce population to (psychological) servitude corresponds to use mobile warfare to distract citizens from real social problems and perform large-scale psyops operations. In theory younger population are the most vulnerable to these kind threats even if I must confess, according to my personal experience, that the use of social network is far less wise by the older age ranges that, in turn, seriously risk to be the most vulnerable to an improper use of new technologies by subtle governements.