Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Etc - The New Opium

I am not tech-savvy; I understand, besides those named above, there are many other Social Media Apps. These seem to be the opium of the day now!

You have to take your hat off to the conceivers of these ideas. They have turned simple ideas into multi-billion global enterprises. Billions were hooked into accessing them each time they had a moment to spare. (Just look around you when you are in public spaces.)
I am getting very annoyed with WhatsApp! I was in a couple of chat groups – being a member of my high school’s old boys network, my university classmates’ lunch “club” and my condo's residents association, among others - but have now decided to opt out from some.

Each time someone starts a chat, alerts would come in non-stop on my “smart” phone to tell me that new messages are threading in. Much of the conversation is, in my Hokkien lingo, mee-suah (thread or thin, and endless noodles) stuff. In spite of our age, some are still pretty naughty; they love to send sexually explicit pictures! I am no saint; but surely this is not a good thing to do on these apps. 

We are all social animals; some are more so than others, which is all understandable. Facebook would bombard you from time to time with alerts on new postings by relatives and friends you know. I do welcome updates on their families, the places they are visiting, their new career, and even their advisories on new medical breakthroughs, etc. But I am bored to death each time I see a posting about the dishes friends are enjoying in a restaurant or a function (many of which are really ordinary), or about their children’s “cute” behaviours. One friend who idolised the late Lee Kuan Yew so much that everything about him in the wake of his demise was posted on line. But the stuff was already all over the papers!
Social media have an important place in our life. But to use them to broadcast your routines in Facebook or to extend your mee-suah talk to chat-group members who are not involved in the subject matter is to me being quite insensitive to others when you are indulging in your opium habit!

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