Society consists of interconnected interacting individuals. There is a wide array of the reasons of interconnection, and not talk about the ever increasing modes of interaction with the passage of time.
Technology has empowered this ‘individual’ to his full and the person today is not what he was a decade back. Despite the intentions behind technological advancements is not concerned with the betterment of mankind but is a result of ever increasing competition and race to be ahead or to leave others behind. This empowerment comes through media, communication technology and internet. So let’s have a detailed look at what this empowerment means and how it can be beneficial.
One is more connected through ever increasing options of communications. You can virtually meet your relatives living abroad through a variety of free software through which you can talk to and see the person at the other end without having to pay for it. All you have to pay for is the internet! Moreover telecommunication is becoming more and more affordable. Telecom companies offer competitive packages and deals for their customers.
Being connected the person today is more informed about what is happening around him. Information and news reaches each and every individual through media, internet and most interestingly text messages. Many news channels now provide the facility to get important news through messages. Apart from news information is the cheapest commodity today, though validation of information is slightly an issue for researchers. Name the topic and you can get plenty of information and opinions within a few clicks. Despite the fact, that media has its own agenda and follows its own vested interests, it definitely has encouraged people to think and speak.
Short messaging is gradually emerging as a phenomenon and many a time one comes across very though provoking and meaningful messages, which in turn helps to initiate a thought process within an individual. Many important issues regarding society, religion, governance and so on are raised by these messages, so much so that our interior minister had to take note of it!
People are more opinionated today, a decade back most of us either knew nothing about something or even if we knew, the meaning was never clear. But today a person likes to have an opinion; the availability of information urges the person to think. We can scan through a variety of different opinions and thoughts presented by people. But there arises another implication that once you have an opinion some thinking then our feelings require to be conveyed and the person wants to be ‘heard’. Most importantly media represents clash of opinions, which is something really vital to make a person think about his surrounding and circumstances.
An individual is ‘being heard’ today, if you have feelings or thoughts then there are plenty many exhausts, text it to your friends in bulk and the message would definitely reach many people easily and if you want to go global then facebook, twitter, MySpace are always there. Sharing is so easy and flexible now, thanks to the internet. Post your thoughts as your status message, a note, a tweet or start a new group on facebook, start a blog and you will get response and more insight from what others think and perceive. Plus media has taught people that they should and can protest and they will get exposure, though media has its own agenda and goals but still it has taught people to think, and speak for their rights. That is why we see on television people protesting and presenting their demands. Now the maturity to protest peacefully would come of time. The first step was learning to protest and the next hopefully would be learning how to protest, because if not in the correct way the protest won’t get you anywhere!
Now the utilization of this empowerment is left to the individual himself, either the individual chooses to capitalize the opportunity or leaves it unnoticed! This rosy part of the picture also has another side, the side we should be aware of.
Today we are more exposed than we were ever before, intelligence agencies, or other government organizations can turn to social networking web sites to gather information besides the security loopholes these websites pose. Privacy policies of social networking websites are continuously revised, most users are not aware of this, so users should continuously review them. Social trends and mindsets can be clearly seen from these websites. So, one should be very careful before making your information public.
People can now pretend more, that web gives a person undue anonymity and one should not take unjustified advantage from this anonymity. A person can pretend more in this age and can pretend to be any one anywhere and fool others. It is a nice practice to comment on Blogs etc with your real name. If you have something to say you should be able to say it from your true identity.
Besides pretention one can be miss-understood more, your tone can never be clear in the text you write, that is why an ‘n’ has been added to etiquettes and a new term has been evolved called: netiquettes. Briefly it tells how to make your tone clear in your text like using emoticons, avoiding upper case text (it would be taken as shouting!) And so on.
Gradually we are becoming more and more impatient and intolerant. We unintentionally demand mechanic precision and accuracy from people as well! And want the speed and authority that only a machine can give! Furthermore people are becoming more anti social; the need for social interaction is reducing as a new mode of so called social interaction is emerging, the interaction through social networking sites, which is to the detriment of our social existence.
Now the person should learn to fight with the drawbacks and exploit the advantages of present age on him.
Nice
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