Sunday, October 24, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Encapsulating your life journey
Is it even possible to archive your entire life journey in one single place ? if you had asked me this question 10 years ago, I probably would have laughed it off, however with the rise of new and social media technologies, sites such as Facebook has made it entirely possible.
Even before a baby boy was born, his parent's have set up a social networking profile for him, using it to share the different stages of his childhood; from the day they found out about the pregnancy till the birth of the baby, his parent's could record every important moment with the posting of pictures/videos and the updating of statuses.
Family and friends could also be part of the social experience by joining in to give their comments, moreover the social experience does not just stop at childhood, when he grows older, he would probably be managing his own social profile by continuing to archive his various life experiences, and eventually many years later till in his final days, he could look back and reminisce on every memorable moment of his life.
There you have it, an entire life journey from its inception to its passing, the most amazing thing; being able to capture and encapsulated everything under one single profile.
Even before a baby boy was born, his parent's have set up a social networking profile for him, using it to share the different stages of his childhood; from the day they found out about the pregnancy till the birth of the baby, his parent's could record every important moment with the posting of pictures/videos and the updating of statuses.
Family and friends could also be part of the social experience by joining in to give their comments, moreover the social experience does not just stop at childhood, when he grows older, he would probably be managing his own social profile by continuing to archive his various life experiences, and eventually many years later till in his final days, he could look back and reminisce on every memorable moment of his life.
There you have it, an entire life journey from its inception to its passing, the most amazing thing; being able to capture and encapsulated everything under one single profile.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Making our social environment a better place
Inspired by a movement called Save Social Energy I've decided to write a blog entry on issues I've observed on social media over the years, and even though I've been guilty of committing some of it myself, I see the need to voice out my opinions on what I think are some of the most common misuses of social media nowadays
1) Telling the entire world what you are doing every moment of the day.
Yes we know you are enthusiastic and you see yourself as an active participant on social media, but you do not have to let everyone know what you are doing all the time, post like "I'm having lunch now" and "I just woke up" "I'm going to sleep" so on and so forth are like so passé, and at the end of the day you will have like probably 20 over post on your social networking profile and none of it makes any sense to anyone, unless of course you have a spouse or family member who wants to monitor your every moment of the day but that aside, I doubt anyone else with a right frame of mind would want to see 20 over post a day from you plainly updating what you are doing.
2) A page full of updates from 3rd party apps
Status like "I have just revived my withered crops" and "I've just slayed the master dragon" are totally flooding our newsfeeds everyday, I know that these games can be really fun but nobody and I mean nobody gives a rats ass about your achievements on these games, and FYI if you are playing these games, there are actually options for choosing not to post it on your newsfeeds
3) Bitching about others on social media
I know sometimes you would like to vent out your frustrations on a certain individual that pissed you off and thus you start bitching about him/her, but as you know the world is a much smaller place with social media, and although that particular person you are bitching about is not on your friend's list, you will never know which one of your 300 or so friends might be close friends with the person you are bitching about.
Even in the past, walls have ears and gossips do spread, today with social media, your walls can easily be seen by 300 or more people on your friend's list and worst still it could spread even more exponentially, so try not to post anything that might offend anyone or worse still, a group of people, you might just end up getting into a whole load of trouble.
4) Publicly criticizing your partner on social media
In my point of view, this is probably the greatest misuse of social media, things like telling all your friends "my boyfriend don't understand me" or "this is the end of our relationship" after having an argument.
Issues that arises in a relationship are personal and should just stay between the both of you or at most between a few close friends; publicly telling the entire world about how crappy your partner is and trying to gain sympathy out of it is one of the lowest act anyone can think of, if you are guilty of that; do thoroughly evaluate your relationship, if you really love your partner, the thought of posting hurtful comments on your social networking profile should have never crossed your mind.
In this age where the social environment is a media-polluted mess we should do our best to embrace social media but at the same time making it a conducive environment for people all over to share and collaborate.
It is great that you have meaningful stuff to share like great music videos, great jokes or even interesting experiences but do take note that there is only so much media an individual can consume everyday, so let us all do our part and make our social world a better place; don't just share, share wisely.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
I knew I loved you before I met you
I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with the song titled "I knew I love you before I met you" by Savage Garden, the possibility of this song might seem very far-fetched but let's change the context a little and look at it in the perspective of today's ever shrinking world which is rapidly being connected through Social Networking.
Social Networking sites like Facebook, MySpace or even LinkedIn, had made falling in love or starting a relationship with someone you have not actually met a possibility, thus giving new meaning to the sentence "I knew I love you before I met you", well physically at least.
Meet Serena (not her real name), a good friend of mine who has in recent years gone through the ups and downs of transcontinental dating via Social Networking.
After a of couple of disastrous experiences with local men, she decided to set her sights and venture further to the west and what better ways to do it than through Social Networking.
Her first escapade took her all the way to the United States, she never did travel there, but she met a guy hailing from Pennsylvania through Facebook; eventually they started a "Facebook Relationship" after a series of liberating and profound conversations on MSN, it seemed at that time they were destined to be together.
Serena said "for once I don't feel myself being judged, and the fact that he is so far away and his culture is so different from mine makes this relationship all the more intriguing, he even sent me flowers, omg!!!"
However sweet the relationship was, factors like personal commitments and time zone
differences became a big barrier to their relationship and eventually putting this romantic experience to an end, and all these happened when they had not actually met physically.
Not to be dismayed, Serena had decided to give long distance relationship another chance, one day through Facebook Serena received a message from a Swedish guy called Thomas (not his real name) and she realized they actually had a friend in common, and through further conversations she found out that the Swedish guy was actually an ex-housemate of that friend in common.
With this, it became the basis of their conversations, they eventually connected via Skype and went into more engaging conversations; when I asked Serena about Thomas; she went: "Thomas is so much like a Singaporean, and he uses terms like 'baobei', 'uncle' and ends his sentences with 'lor' "
Having a Singaporean housemate had probably given Thomas the understanding of Singapore's culture, thus enabling him to communicate with Serena on a much deeper level, needless to say they eventually got involved in a relationship and this time they even met in person, when Thomas actually came down and visited Serena.
Cases like Serena's is well becoming more and more common as locals seek to find their fairytale romance in places far beyond Singapore, and with Social Networking sites like Facebook and many others, this has made such dreams a convenient reality.
Social Networking sites like Facebook, MySpace or even LinkedIn, had made falling in love or starting a relationship with someone you have not actually met a possibility, thus giving new meaning to the sentence "I knew I love you before I met you", well physically at least.
Meet Serena (not her real name), a good friend of mine who has in recent years gone through the ups and downs of transcontinental dating via Social Networking.
After a of couple of disastrous experiences with local men, she decided to set her sights and venture further to the west and what better ways to do it than through Social Networking.
Her first escapade took her all the way to the United States, she never did travel there, but she met a guy hailing from Pennsylvania through Facebook; eventually they started a "Facebook Relationship" after a series of liberating and profound conversations on MSN, it seemed at that time they were destined to be together.
Serena said "for once I don't feel myself being judged, and the fact that he is so far away and his culture is so different from mine makes this relationship all the more intriguing, he even sent me flowers, omg!!!"
However sweet the relationship was, factors like personal commitments and time zone
differences became a big barrier to their relationship and eventually putting this romantic experience to an end, and all these happened when they had not actually met physically.
Not to be dismayed, Serena had decided to give long distance relationship another chance, one day through Facebook Serena received a message from a Swedish guy called Thomas (not his real name) and she realized they actually had a friend in common, and through further conversations she found out that the Swedish guy was actually an ex-housemate of that friend in common.
With this, it became the basis of their conversations, they eventually connected via Skype and went into more engaging conversations; when I asked Serena about Thomas; she went: "Thomas is so much like a Singaporean, and he uses terms like 'baobei', 'uncle' and ends his sentences with 'lor' "
Having a Singaporean housemate had probably given Thomas the understanding of Singapore's culture, thus enabling him to communicate with Serena on a much deeper level, needless to say they eventually got involved in a relationship and this time they even met in person, when Thomas actually came down and visited Serena.
Cases like Serena's is well becoming more and more common as locals seek to find their fairytale romance in places far beyond Singapore, and with Social Networking sites like Facebook and many others, this has made such dreams a convenient reality.
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