Smartphones Addiction

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.” Albert Einstein 

The fear of Albert Einsten has already come to a reality. The term ‘lepaking’ is no longer relevance in this day when the term ‘phubbing’ takes over the Gen-Y’s lifestyle. Todays’ youth definition of hanging out together are more to just checking on their smartphones, updating this and that in the social network sites.

Phubbing is a term to describe the habit of snubbing someone in favour of a mobile phone. In May 2012, the advertising agency behind the campaign - McCann Melbourne - invited a number of lexicographers, authors, and poets to coin a neologism to describe the behaviour. The term has appeared in media around the world, and was popularized by the Stop Phubbing campaign created by McCann.

"Research reveals that 44 per cent of us spend more than half an hour a day looking at our phones, eight per cent admit to checking it for three hours a day and three per cent say they spend five or more hours on their mobiles." (Ellicoot, 2013) .

However, if Albert Einstein is still alive, I’m sure he would not only worries about human interaction but also about the ‘evil’ side of technology. The smartphone addiction has brought into worst condition that can bring to fatality. Not only the addiction can caused marital break, it can also cause people killing each other.

In Miri, a mother was killed by her own sons when she refused to give in to his demand for having a new smart phone. Few cases have also been reported on mother being careless too busy checking on the smartphone that caused incidents to the children. Some even become the C.O.D of the children.

Apart from that, smartphone addiction can also be associated to the ‘selfie’ trend. In London, a teenage Danny Bowman, 19 too obsessed of taking ‘selfie’ shot using his smartphone. He didn’t attend the school, didn’t socialized for almost 6 months and his weight inclined for almost 12 KGs just to be seen as perfect in the ‘selfie’ portraiture.

The technology has been taking over the normal life and makes people become its slave. We can’t live a day without a smartphone and the internet as it has becoming as part of our daily routine to update even one status in our Facebook account, posting a picture or maybe a ‘selfie’ in our Instagram and tweeting “going here, going there”, checking in here and there using Foursquare and even couldn’t drive without a GPS from the smartphone in our car.

A survey by Cisco

The addiction startss when we are using too much of the smartphone’s high-technology functions until our dependency towards smartphone has becoming worst. The result is that we can’t afford a minute not to stare at the smartphone. The video below illustrated how's the life without smartphones. Somehow I wonder how does our ancestors survived the technology by not having any smartphones during their era. 

Reference

Ellicoot, C. (2013, August 4). Mail Online. Retrieved April Monday, 2014, from dailymail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2384397/Are-phubber-Campaign-launched-stop-smartphone-addicts-snubbing-checking-mobiles.html

Article Review: Cyber balkanization; Distraction to the essence of 1 Malaysia

Balkanization is best refers to online segregation which mean the segregation of people on the Internet, often believed to be a democratizing tool used to bring equality among people. Another term use to describe it is the splinternet. Splinternet also referred to as cyber-balkanization or internet balkanization. The internet splinter and divide people according to various factors, such as technology, commerce, politics, nationalism, religion, and interests.

As the internet has become the open and free medium for the public to speak out, many opinion are being give out thus creating so many ideologies which are then segregates the community to its own group according to their beliefs. This new community stands out to defend their beliefs.

Image from Google

In my opinion, the possible factor of cyber balkanization can be because of the limitation of information people can get from the mainstream media as the mainstream media are being restricted through the ownership and law enacted. Dr. Rahmat Ghazali in his article, ‘Cyber-balkanization, distracts national integration’ in Suaramurba stated that;

Emphasizing for more liberal media landscape, Internet users could customize, filter and select new stories and information that they seek for. Such stance is impossible through any of the traditional media. As for instance newspaper readers have no choice in news selection; whatever is published would be the only selection that they have. Similar situation is seen when radio listeners or TV viewers as well as other traditional media audience attain news and information. Startlingly the Internet provides them the liberty to select, filter, and customize news and information from massive and huge archives to satisfy their needs and wants.

Cyber balkanization in negative side does harm the spirit of 1 Malaysia in terms that community is divided according to their political ideology. For example, the government supporters would highly support the concept of 1 Malaysia which has been introduced by Malaysia’s Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak. However, things would be different for the opposition’s supporters.

However, if we look on the positive aspect, cyber balkanization can unite a group with the same interest. If the interest is positive, consequently the balkanization can lead to a spirit of cooperation. Balkanization created a colony of opposite thinking of the mainstream beliefs which can set the community free from the entire typical scenario.

In my opinion, balkanization does not necessarily means the ‘colony’ is against every policy the government has made. It can be that the ‘colony’ are not supporting because they believe, there are more important or better things the government can do to improvise the administration for example the movement for a fair and free election or an anti-corruption movement. By sharing the thoughts to the ‘colony’ of the same beliefs, they can actually make some cooperation for national integration.

For communities of color, the Internet provides us with a unique opportunity to speak for ourselves without first seeking approval or permission or having to secure major funds to do so (Cyril, 2009).

Reference

Cyril, M. A. (2009, December 1). Huffing Post Media. Retrieved 2014 Monday, 2014, from Huffingtonpost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/malkia-a-cyril/the-internet-must-not-bec_b_375942.html

 

Socio-political Criticism via Online Journalism

Online Journalism in Malaysia

In a 1997, former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad pledged a no-censorship policy for the Internet when he was courting overseas investment for high-tech industries. In 1998, the parliament instituted the ‘non-censorship’ assurance through the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998. It has provided a space for the public to voice their participation in the process of democracy, using freedom of expression and the freedom to participate in political debates (Ghazali, 2008).

Socio Political Criticism: Online Journalism as ‘the voice of the voiceless’

The implementation of the CMA has brought to a new atmosphere in Malaysian journalism whereby the term ‘online journalism’ existed. The emergence of ‘blogsphere’ has given a new platform for the public debates on the socio-political scene in Malaysia.

Online journalism offers possibilities of vertical and horizontal flows, an open space to the audience and truthfulness could be challenged directly in real time with less gatekeeping and at the same time projecting the traits as an alternative medium. This may explain why the numbers of online news audience are increasing at a very fast rate (Ghazali, 2008).

This phenomenon can be seen in previous Malaysia 13^th General Election which saw an increase of 2.9 million newly registered voters whom a substantial percentage are believed to be the youths.

Source : Says.my

BN’s attempts to win them over with a range of million-ringgit youth events and the BR1M payouts must have failed as many of them evidently voted for change (Kee, 2013). The young represented a huge percentage of the electorate; most of them are the first-time voters. This could be the impact of the online journalism which allows them an open space for socio-political criticism.

Despite of much electoral campaign BN has launched through the mainstream media, BN still abusing its own power in controlling the mainstream media by making a full use of the media to portrays the positive sides of themselves yet to also portrays the negative sides of the opposition. Much of the vox-pop from television news is the ‘scripted’ views from the public. Not much of the public criticism towards government policies were aired on the mainstream TV station.

This have restricted the public to give out their own opinion and stand on any issue while the ruling party keep claiming that they are representing the majority voices of the public. As an alternatives, public especially the young, choose to express their opinion in the more open space, which is certainly the internet. 

Through the social network also, public can interact each other and convey their dissatisfaction to the political figures. Representatives can utilize the social network to interact directly with the public and bring the issue to the State Assembly. This has become the main factor that the opposition members utilized the social network as the campaign tools during the GE13 as boost the voting from the youths.

Another example ‘voice of the voiceless’ was when Datuk Hasan Malek, minister of Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism gave a statement that the ministry have not received or hear any complain about the consumer goods price hikes from the public. 

Read more here

The statement has raised public anger in social networking sites when the public are actually feeling burdened by the price hikes. The complains from the public were not being publicized in the mainstream media instead the media play it rolls of supporting the course of the government by making a headlines ‘price hikes does not affect the public’. But when it turn to the internet, the reality shows otherwise.

Example of a random survey carried out through social network, Says.com and Astro Awani on the cost of living.

Malaysiakini; Malaysia’s Online Journalism Pioneer

Malaysiakini was launched in November 1999. Steven Gan and Premesh Chandran, two young journalists who believed that political control had corrupted the values of good journalism in the mainstream media, their plan was to bring independent news, investigative reporting, and in-depth analysis to the Internet (Nain 2002).

Steven Gan during World Bloggers and Social Media Awards 2014 in Kuala Lumpur

It is blog that are willing to report on political news with a high standards of journalism that it upholds that would not otherwise be accessible from the mainstream media. Nowadays, Malaysiakini can be considered as an online newspaper that looks like a conventional newspapers because it has become on the main source of news for the citizens.

Malaysiakini posts about fifteen news stories a day (up from eight to ten prior to the election), plus commentary, letters, and reader comments (click here) called “Vox Populi.” It offers sections in Chinese, Malaysian, and Tamil, which contain translations of major English-language stories plus a few more specialized stories of particular interest to the Chinese, Malay, and Indian communities. For most of 2007, Malaysiakini had about five thousand paid subscribers and was accessed by one hundred thousand different computers each day (Steele, 2009).

In Malaysia, all publications are licensed, and journalists are constraints by the restrictions of an Internal Security Act, a Sedition Act, and an Official Secrets Act which makes the freedom of the press is limited. 

Malaysiakini covers both sides’ stories, providing documentary evidence, and giving voice to the voiceless—to legitimize alternative views of events, thus challenging the authoritarianism of the ruling coalition. In creating a space where citizens are free to express their opinions, Malaysiakini deliberately promotes a blueprint for democratic civic discourse in Malaysia (Steele, 2009). 

Apart from that, Malaysaikini also offers both testimony and eye-witness accounts through the Vox Populi (also known as Vox Pop) pages, can be accessed through http://www.kinitv.com/ which are brief responses to news stories. It invites comment from the public on an issue by asking readers to share their views.

“The media landscape in Malaysia is highly politicized. Malaysians have not come across a truly independent media until Malaysiakini came into the picture. That is why the government has tried time and again to dismiss us as an opposition voice. Over the years, we have proven otherwise. That’s something which the government does not know how to deal with,” Steven Gan.

Conclusion

In short, online journalism does allow more socio-political critism because of the open and free space it offers to the internet users. Though online content are not restricted to any regulations, it is still 'loosely' control through few legislation such as CMA and Evidence Act 114A. It is depend on the internet users to utilised the internet as their source of information and public debate space. Somehow the internet allows more voices to be voiced out. Somehow online journalism can still be considered as the 'fourth estate' and plays a  'watchdog' role of journalism.