Many of us are hooked on social media. Life is miserable if you do not have your smart phone with you. Ex-President Trump was on Twitter 24/7 until he was blocked. I opened a Twitter account when it was first introduced but did not quite bother to even look at it until someone told me my account had been hacked to promote something. Friends advised WeChat is more useful that WhatsApp, but I found it a little mickey-mousy and would only use it if reached by friends who do not seem to have WhatsApp, like those in China. When WhatsApp revised its privacy policy, there was a flurry of attempts to switch to Signal and Telegram. But the enthusiasm appears to have quickly die down. I see that many hitherto strong advocates for a switch have remained stuck to using WhatsApp. I personally found Signal not that user-friendly; it performs like Messenger in Facebook. I have not opened an account with Telegram and am therefore not in a position to comment.
Neither do I know what Instagram is for, since I have not come across any necessity to try it, I am happy to leave my ignorance of this app alone.
I did find some TikTok clips amusing. However, since I am neither good in producing or acting, I am happy to leave it alone and watch or delete as I see fit when one is streamed in.
I dislike Facebook, especially after learning a little more about Mark Zuckerberg. I particularly dislike the advertisements that are being streamed in. (I had the misfortune of being swindled by a non-delivery of a backpack that was being advertised.) But in the absence of quality news from mainstream media, I am happy to tune in to its Watch feature from time to time. It offers a mixed bag of stuff – history, geography, statistics, general knowledge, health advisories, fake news from anti-China Taiwanese, insightful clarifications and angry rebuttals from Mainland Chinese, animal behaviours, and what-have-you. You can easily tell the which are the fake ones. And I am happy to share those I find to be educational or informative with friends on WhatsApp.
Being by nature skeptical about many claims, I would also not hesitate to alert if I found any posting from my WhatsApp chat groups to be fake, or an item is already too dated. However, I am still holding myself back in one area, i.e., telling friends to be more conscious when they post things.
We use WhatsApp to wish friends and relatives on festive occasions, birthdays, anniversaries, and other celebrations. But things are being stretched out a bit too far now. A case in point is during the Lunar New Year window. Most folks only celebrate the Eve, when everyone is supposed to gather for a reunion dinner, the first day itself, the ninth day which is more specific to the Fujianese, and the 15th day, which marks the last day of the celebration. Before the advent of WhatsApp, we usually sent a card to reach closer relatives and friends in time to convey our Lunar New Year greetings and wishes. But now we are bombarded with commercially prepared lookalikes for the LNY Eve, LNY day itself and the days that followed which are marked with all sorts of significance until the grand finale: the 15th Day. I do not know how friends may feel, however, I personally think they are being sent or forwarded without one giving much thought to the whole exercise. And if you do not disable the notification feature, you will be bombarded non-stop with alerts! This can be extremely annoying.
I am sure many of us have friends who would religiously post morning greetings or wishes. I do not know where these people get their “post cards”. Don’t they realise not many people are interested in such stuff at all?
I have a friend who must be suffering from some form of attention deficit syndrome. He does his morning walk or qi-gong exercise around his neighbourhood everyday. He would share pictures of himself and of the things he sees on the way with his “dearest“ – people in our chat group who were his high school classmates – virtually on a daily basis. Of course, he may actually mean it, but to a skeptical chap like me, this expression of “my dearest” rings a little hollow. To me, there is a great deal of superficialities in English language. When writing to a stranger, we normally address him or her as Dear Sir or Dear Madam. But “dear” as we understand is someone who means quite a great deal to us emotionally or sentimentally. If “dearest” is used, we should mean someone who is really special special or very close to us, say, like a sibling, parent, a friend of long standing, since it is a superlative. This old classmate is definitely a friend, but he is certainly not dearest to me in terms of attachment – as I understand the meaning to me.
Being somewhat cheeky by nature, I once responded by asking “Hi So-and-so, sure your pictures are not the recycled lot?” He did not seem to detect my cynicism; instead, he forwarded a couple more – just to reinforce that the pictures were current.
I have yet another friend who would on and off post – to the chat group amongst neighbours of the same condo – the glory of the golf views taken from his unit. I felt like asking if his lenses are so different from those of the neighbours”. I can understand if he was showing off to outsiders, but to neighbours?
Yet another who is so anti-establishment that he would send any stuff as long as they are hostile to the government – truth or untruth. I once advised him that anything from one Petra fellow would be suspect; notwithstanding, the “breaking news” from him keeps coming regardless.
Many friends love to post the “special” dishes they have prepared on Facebook. But many look like run-of-the-mill stuff from neigbourhood hawker centres. To me, unless yours is really something different, you may as well keep your talent or taste to yourself.
There are also a bunch of self-promoters on Facebook. One “expert” was giving advice on Covid-19 but if you listen carefully, her talk was basically something that is public knowledge or commonsensical. On closer scrutiny of her background, she is actually a dentist. And the principal of the health chain she is associated is one with a PhD that any discerning person could tell you is from a degree mill.
One man’s meat is another’s poison. It is just natural for us to want to share breaking news, or our achievements or memorable moments with friends. But do put yourself in the shoes of your friends before you click off.