I could say that in my case, that I am truly reliant on the internet, at least for now. I am currently in Melbourne and I had problems getting an internet connection here, but finally, here I am posting up this reflection post.
Now on with the reflection =D.
The internet is something many of us take for granted because we access it every day and spends countless hours on our computers, most of the time we don’t notice the abnormal amount of time we spend typing and clicking away at the keyboard. The internet is something I cannot live without and I think it applies to most people reading this post.
The internet helps me breach the distance between my family and close friends and I am going to give a few examples of what I mean later on. For now, let’s start off with what has the internet done for communication? The internet has eliminated many factors that used to hinder communication over long distances and this can clearly be shown in many ways such as instant messaging and emails. This is my first year in Brisbane and I am pretty much homesick half the time, and I can honestly say I would have gone crazy if not for the ability to communicate with my friends and family through the wonders of Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is truly something that has made studying away from home something easier but it is not the only program that I use to breach the great divide of distance. There are 2 more programs that I would like to introduce and they are Skype and CheapVoip. Sometimes I feel that just typing away at the keyboard isn’t sufficient enough for me. Yes many will say that Windows Live Messenger provides the same services as Skype but for some reason the quality is different and I’d rather spend an hour talking on smoothly and clearly with Skype rather than spending half the time guessing what my friend is saying.
Chatting and talking online maybe something that has become a necessity for me but sometimes I just can’t resist the temptation to call back to Malaysia or even to Melbourne where all my friends are. With CheapVoip, I have literally found my holy grail where I can make cheap phone calls back to Malaysia or any landline in the world for a very affordable price of 1.5 aud per minute. This is a good example of communication breaching the different mediums and it’s something that I think is pretty useful for people on the go like me.
Besides real time communication such as instant messaging and online phone calls, there are many other ways for us to communicate with our friends and love ones. Here’s my example of how I use certain applications on the internet to breach the distance between my friends and family. When I came to Brisbane, I was literally alone because all my friends are either in UK or in Melbourne. The first few days in Brisbane was very hard for me, but I survived by using communicating with my friends over certain mediums such as Facebook and Flickr. A communication medium does not need to be real time communication, and I believe that through the internet, communication has evolved.
For instance, I am currently here in Melbourne for Holiday, and I upload the photos of what I do in Melbourne onto Facebook and Flickr so that my mom who is in Malaysia can access it and have a look at what I have been doing over the Easter break. My friends who are in UK and some who are in Malaysia can view the photos and through my experience here, relive the sights and places I have gone while I was in Melbourne.
Now the question of what is the difference between Facebook and Flickr comes to mind because I am literally comparing the uploading photo function for both of them. In my case, I feel that it does not matter which method of uploading photos you use, but the important thing is that you are able to communicate with your friends and family and share the message which in this case is “my experience in Melbourne, for the world to see.”
Raising the question of communicating through Facebook and etc, we cannot look at communication in the old fashion way where it is merely used for sending simple messages or conversations across. Like I said, communication is evolving and it is bringing more and more ways for people to communicate or project their thoughts and feelings out on to the internet for their peers and family to see.
Communication is something that has always been around but over the years, methods of communication have changed. Just like how communication over the telephone created by Alexander Graham Bell has evolved into mobiles which we can carry everywhere. Our era of communication is based on the internet and its definitely changing for the better.
Blogger is a very good example of a method that people use to project their thoughts and feelings through the internet. Take me for instance, I have a personal blog and have been using it to share my experiences in Brisbane with my friends (for personal reasons, I shall not be sharing the link on this website). Another example of blogger would be our class blog which I am posting on now, I am in Melbourne, sitting outside in the cold air in a little suburb called Devon Hill, posting this up. I have had problems with the internet at a few of my friends’ places and I finally found a house with a working internet connection. By utilizing blogger, I can post up blogs, my experiences and even my assignments from anywhere in the world as long as I one thing present, and that is an internet connection.
After such a long blog post, I finally come to my conclusion. I have been saying over and over throughout the post that the internet is evolving. I believe to be very true because we may not notice it but our ways of communicating have changed from just simple instant messaging to a whole lot more. I for one, sometimes take the internet for granted mainly because it is something that has always been there but think to yourself, has there been any times when you had internet problems and you were unable to get on the internet. Did anyone feel stranded? Did anyone feel like something is missing? Like you were cut off from the world? I have tendencies like that when my internet connection at home, in Brisbane goes haywire. I know some people may say I am addicted to the internet, but look at it this way.
The internet is my mobile phone to the world. Most of us can’t live without our mobile phones and we feel like one of our hands is missing when we leave our hand phones at home. I am using this analogy and linking it with the internet because in my case it is true. I am sure some if not most of us think the same. Internet is something in our lives that we may something take for granted till its missing. The internet in its self is a great communication tool and I hope that I have brought certain new ways for some of you to communicate with people around the world.
A reflection,
Chin Mun, YEE
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