THE EXISTENCE OF SOCIAL MEDIA USERS: WORKING OR PLAYING? (INFORMATION CAPITALISM ANALYSIS)

Abstract

Indonesian people spend an average of 3 H 18 M per day for using social media. The activities
carried out are very diverse, such as keeping in touch with friends and family, finding spare
time, reading news stories, watching live streaming, finding products to purchase, posting
about self-activities, etc. In Fuchs' view, social media users are part of digital labour. They are
exploited by social media corporations, such as Facebook, Google, and others. Exploitation
occurs by commodifying and selling data from social media activity to advertising companies.
This is not realized by the users. The aims of research are the first, to explore awareness and
perceptions of IKBP students about their activities in social media. Second, to deconstruct user
awareness regarding their existence when surfing social media. This research uses descriptive
qualitative methods. The data in this research is accumulated through observation and FGD.
This research took a sample of students from the The Christian Institute of Technology and
Business of Bukit Pengharapan Tawangmangu, Karanganyar, Central Java. The results
of this research indicate that users perceive that surfing in social media is part of playing,
recreational activities and only to fill spare time. Meanwhile, if examined from Fuchs' theory
of information capitalism, social media users are digital labour that be exploited by digital
corporations. This research is important so that users can use social media constructively, such
as accumulating capital and developing creativity. Don't waste time.