First,
There was Emailing.
Mailing your friends was cool and playing all the colored fonts you can type in to your friends and puppy loved ones.
Then there was MiRC, ICQ, YAHOO chat, and MSN where you can chat and talk for hours without having ur parents say your hogging the phone, but responsible for half the line bill. Chatting with 100s of people at one time waiting for the PING! sign to indicate that you are now “LOGGED IN THE CHATROOM”. You start your opening line with “HI, a/s/l ;p?”.
Then mobile phones started an evolution of crazy gadgetry of Text msg, including all the different phone line subscribers promoting, “GET OUR POSTPAID/PREPAID NUMBER NOW AND YOU’LL GET TO SMS 10 FRIENDS FOR FREE~!” and more sms, mms, gprs, promo came along with discount promotions. Forwarding long text that have those too much ammount of “”" ::: ******<> decorations.
Then Blogging came in.
Where everyone blogs about theirs lives, their anger , their adventures, their promotions to start an online sale, telling the world whats going on through their eyes. Which is fine if your sharing your opinion with the world. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Blogs have become the online, modern journal where you get to share your views in more detailed but if possible, LESS private. I mean, there’s no point of having a blog, where its supposed to be about your private life, yet you share your privacy for the whole world to read. I think many people enjoy reading blogs that brings out positive responds, views, theory, and turns out into and open discussion for todays young leaders. But of course you have to watch what you say. Its like reading a series of novels. Its cool to find interesting people who have an interesting mind. But there are those who tend to abuse their blog by ranting out their hatred to their Boss, colleagues, views on politics, religion, races in an immature manner. That leads to times where posting your unprofessional Rant isnt enough you decide to find a way to spread the news in a better way about your blog updates.
So to assure yourself that the world knows what you have to say….They invent,
MYSPACE, Friendster, Hi5, Meebo, and all the other shit that came along with it, made a frenzy of ridiculous torment of decortating ONE page about yourself with all the silly glitter crusors, and flash / gif animated icons, avatars, gravatars and what not. You get random strangers sending you online messages like “Hi, nice pic, can i b ur frenz?? add me plz!A networking website meant to help you with your business, and widen your Contact address to do proper networking became a crazy 24/7 online party at the Hamptons.
So someone decided to make a new Online Networking system Website m’jiggy. Called, Facebook.
Facebook was supposed to be for pros or fresh grads who need to join a network or build a network to start their career, or show their skills as an online resume but more slightly…”face to face” in an online way. Companies around the world uses Facebook to search for potential employees and Organization uses it to widen their network.
But somehow…Facebook had turn into the Neat-ter, cooler, Matured version of Friendster yet still ended up flooding its self with way too many applications, games, quizzies and wat nots. It became, another social webpage, where now, EVERYONE has a facebook. Even your mom, or your granny, or your 6 year old cousin.
So now, at this point Everyone knows what youre up to, what’s in your life? who’s in your life?, what are your new plans, and what facebook page you have become a fan of. Funniest ones or lamest ones would be the silly plants you send to your friends that will bloom into a possum with peacock feathers in 4 days.
just a note, youre not supposed to show your Drunken Beer Drinking photos as your Profile Photo ok. Its not pretty, its a bad image, to those who are actually looking for your qualification, or worst, for your BOSS who does have facebook. – read this. i think its funny.
But apparently, all of these Social Online Networking-Contact on the World Wide Web is not enough for the billions of people in the world.
Today, People Twitter.
They twitter their status. Saying “I’m having coffee now” or “doing a report in a meeting”. Better ones would prolly be “Having a great time at Doyles drinking Shots on Monday Night!”. You can twitter your updates on your phone, or your Vista Widget sidebar or any other moblie gadget that you have that connects to the net.
So now, you dont have to inform your parents where youre going… you can just twitter, and your parents will be aware of your twittingness.
Sad thing is… Post cards, written snail mails, romantinc singing telegram men, will no longer go through the mail box except monthly catalogs, bills, and astro magazines. people will no longer have to buy and send a fresh bouquet of flowers cause you can just send them multi colored types of flowers on facebook. You dont have to send your friend a birthday cake, you can just customized an image of a cake and click send. Wanna take your friend out for a drink? that’s ok, click all the types of funny named drinks on your Drink Application and send em to 20 of your friends and you wont have to spend a cent.
I’m not saying that its all bad. But i’m also not saying that its all Good. You just need to know your limits, and understand how much do you respect your own privacy. The Internet is an amazing tool to search for knowledge, but its also dangerous when you use it for the wrong reasons. I think people tend to forget, that The WHOLE world, is watching the minute they turn on the internet. And rumors/news travel fast.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? What do you think?
Posted by Ryn 