A faceless and voiceless society

The internet community is becoming a faceless and voiceless society especially with the increasing popularity of blogging and text messaging. The same holds true for the 16 million mobile phone users in this country with their SMS and voice messaging. As technology gets better and better, we will sooon have video messaging. A new platform streaming into our internet blogging lifestyle is podcasting or audioblogging. This is the seduction of new technology and we must reap its benefit before it goes out of fashion.

Yes, this is a great time for the autistic individuals to make their presence felt in society! Autistics are inward looking people who lack social skills and the sensitivities belonging to a normal social person like establishing eye contact, facial and bodily expressions and proper voice tone. These conditions are predetermined genetically (God bless them). It is becoming a dream come true for them because they are known to be attached to computers and IT know-how. The same may hold true for other unfortunate individuals like the social phobics, the speech impaired, the stutterer, the deaf and dumb, the semi-paralysed and the handicapped (God bless them all). Do you know that Bill Gates, a very capable and high functioning person, has some autistics traits and poor social skills? In a book written by John Locke titled Why We Don't Talk To Each Other Anymore, it was mentioned that he would comb his hair to look presentable before emailing. He would rock his chair repeated during meetings when the tension was high; he had dated on a virtual romance and would rather chat to his date online and over the mobile phone about a movie that they had watched together than to do it face to face.

Now, blogging has entered the mainstream. There are many 'ready to go' free blogging service like this one that makes your entry into the blogosphere so much easier these days. I believe bloggers will supplant the mainstream newspaper one day.

There are also many people who do not blog. There are people are witty and outstanding when it comes to actual conversations. They would effortlessly talk about everything under the sun including politics, business, childen's education and current issues. We sometimes need an environment of such nature (eg in a local kopitiam) where the spirit of conversation, the humour, the color of various emotions are given full freedom of expression. For this reason, I have also purposely left out many issues of daily concerns in my blog because I knew they could be found in other blogs but more importantly because these are best discussed in an open, face-to-face settings with friends and relatives.

However, bloggers would argue whether you would sacrifice your time and money to travel 10km for a business meeting when you can easily do it online. I say we need a balance of both. I am not against building your blog into a social network platform as, hey, I am a blogger myself! Some activities like virtual dating, internet TV gospel, online counseling service and virtual job interview are making their presence felt and we cannot stop them. Living in a global village, it is hoped that we can bring people living everywhere, especially in remote areas, together. Connecting humans, as the Nokia slogan says. But we must move away from our computer screens into a more personal, interactive lifestyle. We cannot afford to turn from becoming TV addicts to computer addicts.

If society as a whole, even among the majority of us who are not socially impaired, begin to embrace this speechless and faceless technology without the intimacy of human warmth, I see a future where we enter into a newer version of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

And now, I am just happy to let my painting do the talking.....