Making Headway on the High-Tech Highway:

Reflections of a Confused (but Cheerful) Motorist

I recall many years ago, my uncle joined us for lunch carrying a mobile phone the size of a milk carton. Mid-way through the meal he wanted to go to the toilet. He also wanted to bring his phone along. My father, who was sitting at the table laughed at him, “What are you doing?! Why are you bringing your phone into the toilet?!” My uncle replied, “In case it rings.”

That was more than 20 years ago. It was a strange incident during the time. Something to talk about. But today if you told this story expecting people to find something unusual about it, they probably won’t. They would think you just got off the boat from Ethiopia.

I am one of many people who have lived from an age when people never answer phones in the toilet, to a time when the biggest companies in the country include mobile phone makers (Nokia, SonyEricsson) and mobile service providers (Maxis, Celcom).

Yesterday is a world away from today.

Today, a phone is never just a phone. It’s also a gaming device, a music player, a reminder tool, a chat mechanism, an SMS agent, an organiser, a Web browser, a camera – what’s next? Telling you the calorie intake of your next meal, helping you make business/personal decisions? We carry our phones to the toilet, the bed, the gym – I’m sure we’ll have underwater phones one day which you and I can bring into the swimming pool (“Hello? Where are you? Oh, I’m in the middle of a water-polo game…”).

Today, the average office worker’s first task in the morning is check his email or log on to the Internet. Galileo wasn’t entirely right. The earth doesn’t revolve around the sun as much as it crawls and zigzags along the Web. Millions of computers hooked to one another, creating an infinite number of ‘pages’ or ‘sites’ from which one can buy books, buy cars, buy groceries, buy cinema tickets, buy a washing machine, meet new friends, meet weird people, meet people want to meet people but who don’t wish to reveal their real names, read the news, read gossip, read black-market material (e.g. on how to make bombs), read rare articles, read textbooks, watch entertainment movies, watch educational videos, watch news clips, watch product demos, watch real-time satellite feeds, play single-player games, play collaborative games, play competitive games, play casino games (also known as gambling) – the question becomes, “What CAN’T you do on the Internet?”

Today, the average letter has only one line (e.g. “whassup?” or “hey how are you” or “how’s life?”, written in short-formed small letters). E-mail also suggests e-language, e-writing, e-meanings. Everything’s shorter. I don’t think it’s possible to find more than 2% of city-folks who are still writing, as opposed to typing, personal letters to friends or pen-pals anymore. If not for bank statements, bills (a lot of which are already viewable online) and parcels, our postmen might have to find other jobs.

It’s a different world than the one I grew up in. I can still remember the Proton Saga when it first came out. I recall seeing Michael Jackson accept his 8 Grammy Awards. I was in front of the TV when Diego Maradona lifted the 1986 World Cup. If you can recollect these memories too (or even older ones) then we’re in the same car. We were driving on a nice quiet town road and suddenly the road changed colour, became more winding, split into all kinds of directions and we’re seeing far-out and weird road-signs. Also, all manner of strange cars are flying past us. If you’re like me, here are a few notes from a fellow-struggler who’s also trying to learn as much as he can about manoeuvring along this crazy new highway of technology, without crashing into anything.

Most importantly, we must always resist the urge to “catch up”. Don’t tie your status, your reputation, your peace of mind to ensuring that your notebook or mobile or digi-cam matches your friend’s! Technology, especially consumer technology, is very much like sex: True delight only emerges when it’s no longer mainly about technology (or sex).

We must learn to focus on how technology improves your vocation or primary skills, not on the technology and/or the status and “glamour” accruing from it. Think more about how the Internet allows your work to be shared and discussed across the continents and less about how flashy your website is or how many hits it receives a day. Consider more the value of integrating information from thousands of sites to enhance your research and less about how fanciful your slides appear or how many hyperlinks you can include into a document. Imagine more how a new device may help you counsel a friend or resolve a conflict and less about how you can arouse envy by flashing your latest gadget around. Be more eager to use a chat-room or Skype or webcam to grow authentic relationships (with people you may or may not have met) and less as an avenue for insulating yourself from the real world or engaging in dodgy conversations. And if you can use your real name, why don’t you?

Remember to put function above form. Technology and media are meant to serve us, not the other way round. All these new appliances and tools are wonderful creations, but we must not mistake them for gods. For if we do, we will discover to our sorrow that these new gods demand heavy sacrifices.

Having said that, it’s a thrilling high-tech world to be living in, bursting with opportunity, creativity and new paradigms. I especially look forward to what our children will produce for us in the near future, the new and more helpful innovations resulting from worldwide collaboration (e.g. to find cures for deadly diseases, to discover new theories, etc.) and how perhaps the world can be made a more honest and open place when a social worker in Myanmar can instantly broadcast government atrocities to the rest of the globe.

And now, I want to go check my email. I get about 50 a day. Maybe I’ll get one from you, too. I look forward to it. Have a safe and fun-filled journey through media-land.