Global Phillipines

x Sponsored content on Research Live and in Impact magazine is editorially independent.
Find out more about advertising and sponsorship.

Cyberspace – though a somewhat dated term – has come to define our understanding of the internet as a kind of placeless place that stands outside the rest of social life. 

The idea is that when we access the internet, we are stepping into a globalised field of interactions that compresses both time and space in such a way as to make our actual geographical location irrelevant. Online interactions are therefore not considered real or, at least, are seen to be of a different order of reality. 

Alongside this comes the idea of the ‘Panopticon in your pocket’– digital media as a window through which they can observe and understand our behaviour. Everything can then be fed into big data algorithms, by which future dispositions, preferences and choices can be revealed. 

This notion is as compelling for brands as it is sinister for users. But we don’t see it as entirely consistent with our own experiences in the field. 

Rather than regarding cyberspace as a placeless place, we see the internet as entirely continuous with the social traditions and cultural nuances of particular locales. The Philippines, where we recently conducted research for HSBC on personal finance, is a particularly good example.

In part, this is because of the facts of internet use in the Philippines. Filipinos spend an average of 6.3 hours a day online, compared with a global average of 4.4. They are the most active in the world when it comes to social media use – spending 4.3 hours of their time online compared with a international average of 2.4 hours – and all of this despite having one of the slowest average net connection speeds at 2.5mbps. In essence, the Philippines is one of the most digitally active places on the planet. 

Yet this activity does not stand apart from Filipino culture – instead it is best understood as entirely continuous with the values and social conditions that emerge from it.

Our window into this world was the term: utang na loob, meaning ‘debt of the inner self’. In terms of the finance research we were conducting, this was particularly relevant because it explained why people were more willing to borrow from banks than from friends. 

Essentially, the social obligations of debt and owing a favour encompassed by utang na loob run much deeper in Filipino culture than they do in the West. The obligation is far more serious – definitely not to be taken lightly. 

At a superficial level, this explains the importance of the internet in maintaining ties in a nation where remittance from the overseas workforce (mainly women employed in domestic labour) plays such an important role in the local economy. 

Along with the personal and emotional benefits of maintaining frequent contact through social media, it also plays the dual function of enabling family members to demonstrate a continuing commitment to the debt that is owed for the money that is flowing back home. The importance of utang na loob demands it. 

At a deeper level, utang na loob gives us a window into another important term in understanding Filipino psychology: kapwa. Kapwa entered modern parlance via Virgilio Enriquez, the father of modern Filipino psychology, who used it to describe the notion of ‘a shared inner self’. 

Kapwa implies a relationship where there is no easy distinction between ‘self’ and ‘other’, and speaks of an intention to care for others as for oneself; a recognition of an essential unity or oneness that exists between people.

Social media caters to precisely this desire for connection. The ability to share easily your innermost thoughts and mundane moments resonates powerfully with the notion of kapwa, and may offer some insight into the extraordinary uptake of the internet and social media in the Philippines.

Perhaps the most powerful expression of how kapwa relates to social media use came in the wake of Typhoon Ketsana in 2009.  The typhoon, and the floods that followed, killed hundreds and left many parts of Manila underwater. 

As the government declared a national emergency, the citizens took to social media to mobilise aid from friends and agencies at home and abroad. Stories, pictures, news, updates and immediate calls for help were all mediated via social media. 

Far from tapping into something abstract, virtual or globalised, Filipinos were using social media as a natural extension and expression of their core values – the responsibility towards the shared self in times of emergency.

Jim Mott is associate director at BAMM