sorry, what did you just say?
Ravi Veloo, Today Online 1 Mar 08;
Why do they call it a community, just because a stranger or two drops a comment in the response box?
THE sexy young thing in the very short denim skirt spread herself across her boyfriend's long legs as they sat silently on the MRT train zipping to Bedok that night.
They didn't talk. Not that they were angry at each other. She was after all slumped across his thighs. Then at the station before Bedok, she got up, no goodbye or farewell kiss, and simply walked away.
She whipped out her handphone and so did he immediately as she minced to the long queue for the escalator, joining those ideologically opposed to using the stairs to go down. He was texting with speed.
Ah, I thought. So this is how they communicate.
They have private conversations by SMS, the way our colleagues these days use office email to talk to the person sitting right next to them.
But what's this? He was still texting and receiving, but she had put her phone to her ear to make a call. So they were still not talking to each other!
What is it with our new young? So young and already so bored with each other? You may say, well, they were texting someone. So they were talking to someone, if not each other.
But how meaningful a conversation can you have on SMS? I have seen groups of teenaged schoolgirls in Burger King, up to four at a time, all on the phone at the same time, texting someone else.
Go to any McCafe and you'll see young couples or groups like in the old days. What's new is this: They, too, aren't talking to each other.
I saw one couple in their 20s, she was actually knitting while he was surfing the Net. Another young couple, he was reading the newspaper! They were all like some old couples who had run out of fresh things to say.
I saw another group of four, two boys and two girls, early 20s. They were each reading a comic book in Chinese.
In a coffee hangout at the Singapore Management University campus on a Saturday afternoon, a group of two girls and three guys, maybe students at that university, maybe not: One guy was reading a magazine throughout, and said nothing. Got up only to find another rag to read.
Never mind how rude it was, that just makes you wonder.
Even Brad Pitt must make some effort to entertain and engage Angelina Jolie. Why were these girls letting a pock-marked guy treat them like wallpaper?
The notable economist Paul Krugman wrote last week that he thought communism fell not because it was flawed but because people had lost faith in it. Capitalism, he pointed out, is a system that works even if you don't believe in it because it feeds on selfishness, not selflessness.
Maybe our young are what we reap from the seeded culture of crass capitalism, which is particularly intense in Singapore where the safest passion to pursue is the dollar.
Driven essentially by self-interest, our young give true meaning to the word iPod — yes, they are one.
Is it any wonder that even on the Internet, most of our young are blogging, basically keeping a public diary, rather than engaging each other in forums in an alternative space?
Even on the Net, the young are just talking to the wall. Why do they call it a community, just because a stranger or two drops a comment in the response box?
Perhaps larger countries can afford this. But a small country, dependent on human resources, had better find a way to encourage more talk, so we can have more informed opinions, so we can have more ideas and maybe more leaders in more fields. All meaningful acts begin with an opinion.
Where shall we start? Well, maybe not with the young. They don't seem to have anything to say.
The writer runs The Media Campus, a media training outfit for newsmakers and journalists. He can be reached at ravi@themediacampus.com
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