Barack Obama says the rise of the new information age with the internet and social media can be powerful but also dangerous.
Speaking at Dreamforce with Salesforce chair and co-CEO Marc Benioff, the former US president says the abundance of media is causing a greater disconnect in society.
“The internet can be a powerful tool to see each other but right now it’s splintered,” Obama says.
The world has never been as informed as it is now with the 24-hour news cycle but it has also paved the way for fake news and divide.
One of Obama’s biggest concerns for current and future generations is navigating the information overload that people are exposed to daily.
“When you have big disruption information technologies, that can be dangerous,” he says.
“People don’t know what is true and what’s not and they have been confronted by things they haven’t been before.”
He told Benioff and the audience, one of his other concerns is that all this added information with globalisation and technology is causing more siloes around the world.
He gave the example of growing up with only three television stations.
Despite many other differences people had in the past, he says receiving the same information was a “common thread” that connected everyone even if they had different perspectives.
“We shared something that allowed us to have a disagreement but not feel separate,” he says.
“[Now] if you watch Fox News you live in a different world to someone who reads The New York Times.”
While he admits that new technology allowed for him to expand his reach, he says it has also amplified inequality, anxiety and uncertainty.
“The rise of extreme inequality both within nations and between nations is being turbocharged by globalisation and technology,” he says.
Material inequality, political turmoil and always wanting more are just some of the issues that he says society is facing as a direct impact.
He told Benioff the solution to these big problems isn’t always with a technical one though.
“Part of the goal of solving big problems is not just finding the right technical solution, some is finding the right values.”
AdNews attended Dreamforce as a guest of Salesforce.
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