In recent weeks, the work of sociologists Donald Horton and Richard Wohl on "parasocial relationships" (1956, Psychiatry Journal) has exploded in online research. The principle: members of an audience can feel and develop a psychological relationship with artists, performers, and celebrities, whether in pure fiction (such as a series) or staged scenarios like talk shows.
What was clearly a one-way street in the pre-internet era becomes more complex with social networks. Is it an illusion of closeness?
Not entirely: the fact that personalities now exist amidst a stream of content from friends and acquaintances tends to bring a part of the person's identity effectively in front of others. Indicators of liveliness (discussed in the essay) give substance to what was once relatively distant: notifications, the possibility of permanent and, above all, frequent interaction make these parasocial relationships very real habits for individuals.
"Let's not confuse existence with editorial line."
Etienne Dorsay
The recent announcements from ChatGPT will undoubtedly accelerate this attraction to fictional beings. Just six months ago, it was challenging to envision automating nuances in interpersonal conversations in private messaging online, conveying emotions, or a granularity of feelings.
GPT-4 will offer 100 trillion parameters to its users. To put it into perspective: 130,000,000,000,000. Enough to work on colossal, nuanced, and addictive language models. The prospects can be apocalyptic, as in the case of M3GAN, or on the contrary, represent hope, especially for including people excluded from socialization systems. The choice is ours.
To quote Etienne Dorsay, a brilliant homage by French journalist Gérald Arno to the eponymous character played by Jean Rochefort: "Let's not confuse existence with editorial line."
The word of the day: low-code
With ChatGPT, the phrase "low code" has exploded in the media. What does it mean? Allowing the creation of applications (web, mobile, etc.) or automating processes without being a genius in computer programming. A fundamental trend since, according to Gartner, 70% of new applications developed by companies will use these technologies in 2025, compared to less than 25% in 2020.
Impressive links
An engaging survey by the Pew Research Center on American 13-17 year-olds regarding cyberbullying was revealed last December. Among other socio-demographic conclusions: teenagers who spend more time online are also more likely to be victims of cyberbullying, as well as experiencing various forms of it.
Attention is becoming increasingly scarce: according to Dr. Gloria Mark (University of California, Irvine), we are not able to concentrate on a screen for more than 47 seconds on average, compared to 75 seconds in 2012. One of the remedies, according to her? Bingo: intensive reading on paper. So let's follow the saying of Sylvie Grateau in Emily in Paris (season 3) in response to her young lover:
"Who still reads print newspapers these days?"
"All those who matter in Paris!"
Obviously.
See you soon!
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