Facebook: Set childish things aside

WINSTON Churchill once said that eating words never gave him indigestion.

If anything, I hope that a certain female Singaporean teacher will be spared a tummy upset as she stomachs the furore over her poor taste in posting a note detailing grammatical errors by her students on Facebook. Snippets from their English essays had been posted ad verbum for her friends to join her in ‘laughing at how creative students can be’.

Now that the laughter has died down, it might be good for us to pick up the pieces.

Like myself, I am sure that many a youth has thrown caution to the wind when it comes to Facebook, taking part in everything from random quiz applications to becoming fans of personalities as varied as Nominated MP Eunice Olsen and United States President Barack Obama.

Originally conceived as a platform for college students, official statistics document the fastest growing group of Facebook users to be those aged 35 and older.

Among them are tech-savvy parents as well as prospective employers scouring Facebook for information about their subjects.

Facebook is so pervasive now that potential scholarship applicants have been advised to maintain ‘healthy’ profiles in case scholarship officers dig up skeletons from their accounts.

My friends lament that the ‘old guard’ has staged a coup of sorts on the virtual domain of youth. Facebook will never be the same with baby boomers on board.

Pessimists might see this as stifling youthful expressionism and they are not entirely wrong. But if being cautious gives rise to responsibility, then there are benefits.

It is not uncommon for casual comments left on Facebook to be misconstrued by others, creating confusion at best and petty misunderstandings at worst.

Photos of misdemeanours after a night of drunkenness can be very incriminating, especially when faces can be tagged with names.

A friend who saw I had registered for the event, Bush’s Last Day In Office, mistook my frivolity for questionable political activism.

Little is gained from flippancy and much is lost when one misplaces his responsibilities.

For that teacher, it was her work ethics. For us, it could be an unspoken obligation to uphold our school image or the family name.

If the teacher had instead posted constructive feedback for her students who had a poor grasp of English, I am sure the ensuing debate would have been advantageous for both her and them.

It was on Facebook that I watched President Obama’s inauguration and decided to heed the call to ’set aside childish things’.

An apt ethos for Facebook perhaps?

The writer, 20, has a place to read law at NUS this year

Keeping that glint in the eye

NEWS of two American reporters having been sentenced to a labour camp for 12 years in North Korea makes one thing clear: What journalists do is a public service.

And it is commitment like theirs to report on world issues that will keep rookies like me invested in the industry, eyes wide open to its occupational hazards, political nuances and all.

Of course, they are not the first journalists to be prosecuted this way. There are already too many stories of men and women of the press being summarily imprisoned for asking too many questions.

One incident hit especially close to home.

Four years ago, I was an intern with The New Paper when Mr Ching Cheong – a senior journalist with The Straits Times – was arrested.

He had gone to China for research, and was detained there and charged with spying for the Taiwanese government. He was eventually jailed for three years.

His sentence was a big deal in this company, the kind of issue that cuts across newspapers, new media, departments and pay scales.

It even reached across borders, with 500,000 journalists from more than 100 countries signing a petition organised by the International Freedom of Expression Exchange calling for his release.

Though I was just an intern at the time, I put my name to the cause, and religiously followed the mass e-mail messages that doubled as rallying calls to free him.

Today, I think of him again, along with the imprisoned United States journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling.

Working on a story for US television channel Current TV, the two women were arrested in March near the China-North Korea border.

Charged by the Pyongyang government with unspecified ‘grave crimes’ against North Korea and with entering the country illegally, they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labour.

Each time a journalist makes the news in this manner, as Mr Ching did, as Ms Lee and Ms Ling did, it only reinforces for novices like me the dangers of this job, and that it calls for a certain type of person to do it anyway. According to his wife, Mr Ching had gone to China to procure recordings of a former prime minister’s secret interviews. Ms Lee and Ms Ling had been working on a report on human trafficking across the border.

As a rookie reporter, I am deeply impressed by their commitment to pursue what they consider worthwhile news.

Of course, not every journalist is going to be reporting on world hunger, espionage or terrorism. Then again, not every journalist on a heavy beat covers it with a glint in his eye.

And in the end, that glint is what matters: It singles out the ones who are not only obsessed with getting it right, but perfect too.

The examples of Mr Ching, Ms Lee and Ms Ling are inspirations to rookies like me.

I can only hope that such devotion to the work of journalism does not always lead to a bitter end.

The Cs that guide us forth

What are the new Cs that will guide today’s youth caught in the world’s deepest recession since the Great Depression? YouthInkers give their two cents’ worth on the shift in values

Build on health and abilities

TO QUOTE a cliche: Youth is wasted on the young. Why? Because we spend so much time and effort chasing the five material Cs – cash, condominium, credit card, car and country club – that society expects us to possess.

But I know life as a youth is more than just about those Cs. And perhaps it is about more than just the four Cs that the Education Minister listed as well. (According to Dr Ng Eng Hen, students need confidence, compassion, compartments and company to get the most out of university life.) I believe personal happiness and success are built upon the foundations of one’s health and the harnessing of one’s abilities – hence the following Cs of my own:

Be ‘carefree’: We should all invest more time in leisure activities to relax and unwind, it is as simple as that.

Watch our ‘calories’: We live in a society where health is increasingly taken for granted. This generation of primary and secondary schoolchildren spends far more time playing computer games than paying attention to exercise and health.

Know your ‘capacities’: We ought to keep growing and improving. If we do not push ourselves holistically during our youth, we will never know how much we are capable of or can contribute to society.

Keith Neubronner, 20, recently graduated with a diploma in communications and media management from Temasek Polytechnic

Beware of burning out

DR NG’S proposed four Cs are values most can identify with. Having completed my freshman year, I can attest to their effectiveness, especially ‘compartments’ and ‘company’. In university, there is the temptation to try out everything. If you have too much on your plate, you might burn out from over-commitment.

In my freshman year, I was all over the place, straddling various commitments from studies and co-curricular activities to part-time jobs. At the end of the day, I was left feeling unfulfilled because I could not take the time to truly appreciate the activities for what they were worth.

Also, there’s nothing like friends to tide you over tough times – those willing to lend you notes when you miss lessons and those who will have lunch with you when everyone else is mugging. They make the journey more worthwhile and tolerable.

Besides, we have a lifetime after graduation to pursue the material Cs.

Chew Zhi Wen, 21, has finished his first year in law at NUS

Beyond the gates of university

THE Education Minister’s four Cs for university life are good recommendations, but since it has been three years since I left university for the working world, the values that work for me have changed somewhat.

I do not covet the traditional five Cs as much as I did in my younger days. After all, transient possessions like a car and credit cards disappear as easily as they appear.

My four Cs now, to add to Dr Ng’s list, are ‘career’, ‘curriculum’, ‘character’ and ‘company’.

I define ‘career’ as working in a company where I can be happy and grow. I try to gain as much experience as I can from each job, no matter how small, to prime myself for the next one.

That leads to ‘curriculum’ – the aptitude for learning, whether at work or in life. That includes taking external courses whenever possible to build one’s resume. For instance, my French-language courses are a crucial step towards my dream job of working for Cirque du Soleil.

I see ‘character’ as my conduct in society; through words and actions, how people see me and how I see myself.

Finally, ‘company’ refers to my relationships with loved ones and making time to keep in touch with them.

Aisha Mostafa, 23, graduated from the University of Huddersfield in 2006. She works in the arts and for a cafe chain

Paradigm shift needed

AS SOMEONE who will matriculate in two years’ time, I could not agree more with Dr Ng’s four Cs.

They focus on the social links between Singaporeans and emphasise the human workforce as the lifeline of our nation. Are the values of cash, condominium, credit card, car and country club still valid in the economic crisis and amid retrenchment woes? Yes, but they are no longer the fruits of a nation’s success. Material possessions disappear over time, but the bonds that we form with one another are the key to survival.

Only when good relations are made and priorities set will we be capable of riding out these tough times. Many of my army peers have taken up part-time studies to brush up skills they will need in varsity life while I try to keep in contact with school teachers long after graduation and seek their advice on further education.

Singapore needs a paradigm shift to the minister’s four Cs in cherishing what we have and not taking things for granted. They help manage our limited resources and ensure our social stability in sailing such uncharted waters.

Jonathan Liautrakul, 19, has a place to read arts and social sciences in NUS

Relax, be a bit cheeky in class

AFTER having ploughed through university for four years, I realise there’s one thing many of my peers sorely need – cheekiness.

I’ve endured countless classes and tutorials in which everyone sits ram-rod straight and ardently takes down whatever the professor or tutor is uttering for fear of missing out on something profound.

Whenever the floor is thrown open, a few enthusiastic souls proffer answers with all the seriousness of contestants on The Apprentice, while others are too afraid or ‘paiseh’ to even squeak a syllable.

Hardly anyone smiles. Even the professor’s sincere attempts at joking are met with scattered nervous laughter.

Why the intensity, guys? Why not lighten up, hang loose a little and derive some fun out of class? The professor is there to help us learn. He’s not that creature that sizes up your good and bad deeds on Judgment Day.

As the saying goes: There’s a time for everything, and that time is university.

Why am I not surprised such kill-joy behaviour translates readily into the coldness of the average workplace after graduation?

Eisen Teo, 24, recently graduated with honours in history at NUS

Keeping the young in touch with grassroots reality

Get our heads out of the clouds

HOW can tomorrow’s leaders be attuned to the grassroots community if many of us are confined to our privileged backgrounds and elite schools?

If all we fret over is getting first class honours or organising chi-chi parties, we will never understand how some struggle to put food on the table.

Many of us are fortunate enough to belong to families that live comfortably, rendering us unable to identify and empathise with the grievances of those who survive on a standard of living far below ours.

To bridge the gap, youth should engage in community work with a sincere intention to connect with the people, not just to score good publicity or chalk up points for a co-curricular activity.

Lend the elderly a listening ear to understand their struggles. Ask a disabled child about his hopes and aspirations.

What we need are not distant figure heads, but intimate listeners.

Chew Zhi Wen, 21, has survived his first year in law at the National University of Singapore.

 

Lessons on morality

HAVING worked and volunteered in grassroots organisations for close to five years, I have learnt many lessons on ethics and moral leadership.

When our committee organised an event with an external agency, we were entitled to special rates. This meant that we could save costs on the event which would then result in profits.

We had two options: to keep these profits or to redistribute them back to the community. We chose to do the latter.

The goal of grassroots organisations is less to be a profit-making outfit and more to promote bonding within the diverse community.

A few weeks ago, Professor Kenneth Paul Tan wrote about morality in pragmatism in this newspaper.

Such lessons apply to grassroots organisations as well: Earn enough to cover basic costs and redistribute the additional savings back to the community.

A pragmatic approach based on morality can be applied to almost any scenario, even with regard to the leadership of Singapore.

As for me, I will always keep such lessons in mind as a reminder not to take morality out of pragmatic decisions that I make in life.

Ephraim Loy, 27, is a final-year social science student at Singapore Management University. He is the chairman of the Punggol Community Club Youth Executive Committee.

 

Killing two birds with one stone

I HAVE always trusted my government to come up with solutions to national problems that my peers and I only have to abide by without much question.

I try to keep up with the latest debates in Parliament, but I usually do not bother to continue studying or understanding the implications of these policies.

All I am interested in is that they ensure my future – such as finding a decent job after I graduate from university – is well secured.

Ironically, the recent economic meltdown has made my peers and me even more preoccupied with sustaining our own abilities and securing a future rice bowl in a society that emphasises branding. Hence, we care little about others in society and the problems they face.

Instead of waiting to be spoon-fed by government aid, why not solve our own problems and care more about society at the same time?

Schools and non-profit organisations can hold sharing sessions with MPs and ministers that are organised and chaired by us. We can then pick up leadership skills and responsibility, and connect more with the grassroots at the same time.

These are values that are imperative when our time to lead Singapore comes.

Jonathan Liautrakul, 19, has a place to read Arts and Social Sciences at NUS.

 

To truly empathise, be proactive

THE comforts of everyday life have distanced the majority of youth here from the bread-and-butter issues of reality.

At the start of this year, with the aim of understanding Singapore’s socio-political system better and getting a feel of what issues really matter to Singaporeans, I took the proactive step and joined the Young PAP.

This has undoubtedly opened my eyes to the realm of politics and grassroot matters, which I previously had no interest in.

I have also been an active volunteer of self-help groups such as the Chinese Development Assistance Council, where I have been organising camps for needy children since November 2006.

Such small but significant steps have gone a long way in aiding me to not only understand the hardships of under-privileged Singaporeans but also to become a full-time volunteer and grassroots leader after I graduate.

I strongly urge youth to find their own incentives and impetus to be more involved in contributing to society, for personal growth, self-discovery and to be a truly valued member of society.

Nicholas Lim, 20, has a place at Nanyang Technological University’s Nanyang Business School.

 

Don’t just pander to the majority

I AM in tune with what my friends and people like me want: We are liberal, outward-looking and hold Singapore to the same standards as developed Western democracies.

It may mean that I’m not entirely in tune with the ‘grassroots majority’, but what’s wrong with that?

The very notion of a grassroots majority threatens to efface the many different groups of people in Singapore, each with its own unique aspirations.

I do not believe we are to ignore these groups and their dreams if we are to build a truly harmonious society; after all, shouldn’t everyone have a right to be represented in our democracy?

How better to serve the segment of community most immediate to you than by standing up for your personal views and for those of people like you?

Don’t fall into the typical trap of pandering to the interests of the majority.

Eef Gerard Van Emmerik, 20, will read law at SMU later this year.

Saying no to liabilities – future kids included

THE current recession has made me more attuned to current affairs and instigated a burning desire to take charge of my financial life.

What disturbed me deeply were newspaper reports about elderly investors hit by the DBS High Notes 5 saga and young families downgrading their homes to cope with wage cuts.

Determined never to put myself in a position where I could lose my life savings or be swamped by expenses and liabilities, I became hell-bent on finding ways to reduce my expenses and effectively manage my money.

A trip to Zouk’s Flea and Easy Market triggered it all.

So smitten was I by potential savings from sale items there that I decided to proclaim an austerity drive of sorts.

I started visiting online frugal living forums and reading materials to improve my financial literacy.

From my reading, I have chosen to abide by three basic principles centred on living within one’s means: no mortgage, no credit card debt and no liabilities.

If one thing can be learnt from the recent sub-prime mortgage crisis, it would be this: One does not really own a home unless it is paid for in full. As long as there is a mortgage, the bank has a hold on your home if you default on a loan.

Here in Singapore, rental or living with one’s parents is the way to go until one has enough money to pay for a home in full.

I have no qualms about living with my folks – even into my 30s – until I have enough to pay in full for my own place.

Credit cards are the easiest traps to fall into. I have seen too many friends who have had their supplementary cards cancelled by their parents within the first six months.

Rather than go with the ‘charge now, pay later’ credit culture this generation indulges in, I primarily pay in cash or use debit cards to avoid the debt trap.

But my aim to have no liabilities is probably the most controversial.

I am almost adamant about getting a vasectomy, because the single, most costly choice in one’s life is starting a family.

Although there is no shortage of incentives to boost birth rates in Singapore, the ever-rising costs of living and education, intense societal pressure to succeed and this global recession have provided strong disincentives for me to even entertain the idea of raising a child, let alone having one.

Asian values of filial piety should not revolve around delivering grandchildren to showboat in front of relatives during Chinese New Year or passing down the family surname.

The main priority is to ensure our parents do not end up in a nursing home surrounded by strangers, so that they can live out their twilight years in dignity.

Choosing between my parents’ well-being and societal expectations of raising children is a no-brainer for me. The former will always triumph, and I will feel that I have done my fair share, as long as they are taken care of.

While there are intangible losses in forsaking a family and living on rent, it is a path I am determined to follow, as these three principles allow for something money cannot buy: peace of mind.

Geran Wong, 18, is a pre-university Year 3 arts student at Millennia Institute.

I’m not nuts – just allergic to them

FOR an estimated 240,000 people in Singapore, a meal out is a game of Russian roulette: They suffer from fatal peanut allergy.

I am one of them.

While the culture of dining out among young working adults seems to be thriving despite the recession, with no shortage of peanuts in Asian cuisine, my experiences have been dampened somewhat.

A sprinkle of peanut dust in popiah or a splash of groundnut oil on my noodles, and I embark on a potential one-way trip to the Accident & Emergency room.

Even a casual encounter with an errant nut can bring about a potentially lethal reaction – anaphylactic shock.

That is, the body massively overreacts to the ‘invading’ nut and rushes to shut off your airways. Your tongue, throat and face swell, and breathing becomes difficult or, in the worst case, impossible.

To halt the process, anyone who has the allergy generally keeps an Epipen (adrenaline injection) close at hand.

I first discovered my allergy at the age of three, when I was given six peanuts at a neighbour’s house. After one, my throat was on fire. But I had been taught to eat what I was given, so I finished them – then spent the rest of the day being violently sick at home.

It was not until I was 12 that my parents had me diagnosed for the condition, after the death of a young girl from eating a peanut made the news.

Today, six nuts would be the end of me – the allergy worsens after each exposure.

Even so, the fact that such an allergy could result in death seems not to faze people in Singapore.

Despite better labelling and increased awareness, it can still be a struggle to convey the seriousness of the allergy to doubters and restaurant staff.

When I eat at hawker centres or places where English is not well understood, I hand over a piece of paper I carry with me with an explanation written in Chinese and Malay, which is pretty effective.

But when I’ve called ahead to a restaurant and explained about my allergy when making a reservation, one chain, which assured me there were no nuts in my order, got it wrong. Twice. So I’m not trying again.

To cut out the risk involved in eating out, restaurants could teach staff about fatal allergies, and label menus clearly.

It would save many like me from this typical reaction: A waiter raises an eyebrow and smirks a little – as if I just asked for his phone number – when I tell him I am allergic to nuts.

The unspoken words rest on the tip of my tongue: ‘No! Not those nuts.’ And it won’t be such a hilarious cause of innuendo when I suffocate in the middle of the restaurant.

In fact, growing up with the condition has meant an awful lot of teasing. There will always be people who do not believe you have an allergy and think you are just fussy.

Trickier still are relationships.

If your boyfriend forgets that he can’t eat nuts around you, you may fall victim to the ‘kiss of death’, as I once did, from a guy who had just enjoyed a Snickers bar.

Needless to say, that relationship didn’t go beyond the A&E.

But I have learnt to adapt.

Instead of ignoring the jibes, I now realise that everyone I tell about this allergy is one more person in the know.

While there is always room for humour, if you meet people with a nut allergy, resist the urge to tease or call them fussy.

They are not nuts – just allergic to them.

What would stop me from picking up a cigarette?

Open their eyes

TO GET youth to banish cigarettes from their lives, it may help to give them a personal glimpse into the mess smoking can create.

While serving in the Red Cross back in secondary school, I visited a nursing home and met an elderly resident who used to be a chain smoker but was now suffering from lung cancer.

Showing me photos of his younger days, it was clear his sturdy frame had withered and the sparkle in his eyes had gone. He was lying in bed, wheezing and gasping, a shadow of his former self.

Speaking in Cantonese, he told me how the pain was a constant, and every breath hurt him like a piercing dagger.

I swore then never to take a puff. It’s one thing to laugh off a TV advertisement; it’s quite another to see for yourself, in the flesh, the enormous harm a lifetime of cigarettes can do.

All said, I’m not advocating that every youth has to go to a nursing home to understand the dangers of smoking. But perhaps such visits could be included in more school programmes. They go much further than we think.

 

Ow Yeong Wai Kit, 20, has a place to read arts and social sciences at National University of Singapore

 

Price it out of their reach

I AM not a smoker, but like others, I have been tempted to give it a try.

The only thing that has truly stopped me in my tracks is my knowledge of how much it would cost in the long term.

Assuming I smoke 10 sticks daily, the average number for addicted youth here, a pack of 20 costing about $12 will set me back $180 monthly, or $2,160 annually.

It does not take a maths genius or a financial whiz to tell you that that is a costly habit as compared to say, playing soccer or LAN gaming with friends. But given the number of youngsters lighting up today, clearly, they can afford it.

I believe the only true deterrence is to significantly raise the prices of cigarettes to $15 for those up to the age of 29. Only then will they realise that smoking is literally about seeing your money rolled up, burned and vanished into thin air.

This measure will deter many youth from inhaling that addictive first whiff of nicotine, and hopefully by 29, they would have matured beyond their childish whims and be dissuaded from taking up smoking by other factors, such as their wives and kids.

 

Keith Neubronner, 19, recently graduated with a diploma in communications and media management from Temasek Polytechnic

 

Friends will do the trick

CANING doesn’t work, raids cannot capture all of them, and they always plead ignorance of Singapore’s anti-smoking laws when caught.

But just as many youth pick up smoking because of peer pressure. I believe peer pressure is also what will prevent them from picking up their first stick.

I am strongly against smoking, but I must confess to having considered taking a puff, just to see how cigarettes tasted.

I chatted with a group of close friends – all non-smoking, anti-smoking girlfriends – and one of them said pointedly: ‘Bryna, are you crazy? What’s the point of ‘just trying’?’

Fine. I killed the thought on the spot.

Having friends who nag at you to stop, friends who threaten to ‘un-friend’ you if you keep smoking, and friends who have once smoked but given it up – that will do the trick. After all, many youth today value peers’ comments more than their parents’.

 

Bryna Sim, 22, is an honours student in history from NUS

 

Shock therapy

I WILL always remember our respiratory anatomy lab session in the first year of medical studies.

The dissected cadavers, all with tar- stained lungs, widespread cancer and severe emphysema, all had smoking as a direct or indirect cause of death.

I was then told by one of the respiratory physicians that most patients with asthma who smoke will never die of lung cancer only because they will never live long enough to contract it.�

‘Shock therapy’ is also used in Australia, where commercials show the possible gruesome effects of smoking.

Graphic pictures have also been used here, but why not organise school excursions to anatomy labs with actual diseased body parts and organs on display?

This will bring youth face-to-face with what they can readily dismiss on TV.

 

Tabitha Mok, 22, is a fifth-year medical student at the University of Western Australia

 

Take the parents to task

WHILE the HPB’s intentions are good, I feel that it is neglecting an important factor which determines whether or not youth take up smoking – the family.

Why? Many youth smokers pick up smoking because they have parents or relatives who smoke. These ‘role models’ saturate their children with cigarette smoke from a young age, which often leads to them picking up the habit when they grow older.

My maternal grandfather smoked two packs a day. His sons picked up the habit from him. My uncle smokes heavily, and his sons are all smokers. My father abhors smoking, and so do I.

Mere coincidence? I think not.

Current laws punish stall owners who sells cigarettes to underaged smokers. We should extend these laws to make it such that the parents are held responsible if their children are caught smoking.

For example, a parent who smokes and whose underaged child is caught smoking will be denied child relief for income tax; the relief can only be reinstated if both parent and child successfully quit smoking for an extended period of time.

A communal effort is more likely to work, and what better place to start than the family unit and where it hurts most – the pocket.

 

Jason Hau, 23, is a third-year communications and new media student at NUS

Post-it art

A WANDERING artist is giving Singaporeans ‘art for thought’ on quirky, enigmatic ‘Post-it’ notes plastered all over the island.

Each piece of art is drawn on the ubiquitous yellow, rectangular sticky paper found sticking out of textbooks, on work desks and in office supply stores.

The modus operandi of the anonymous artist (or maybe there is more than one of them) is simple: Every day, he (or she) sticks up one drawing in a public area.

A photo is taken of it and uploaded on a blog. Updates are posted on the artist’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The jury is still out on what the artist’s point really is. The art is interesting but not exactly original. Most ’slogans’ are cliches, such as ‘Keep your chin up’, ‘The glass is half-full’ and ‘Dare to fail’.

But there is a quirkiness to it that the public might find refreshing. For example, ‘Keep your chin up’, or #23, is stuck on a human sculpture near Clarke Quay that has no chin.

Another, ‘Stand for something’, is pasted in an MRT train next to a priority seat for pregnant women or the elderly.

It will take a sense of humour to appreciate it. After all, more straight-laced Singaporeans might mistake the artist for a litterbug, or worse, a vandal.

He is certainly popular among the Net-savvy. Since venturing into what he calls ‘temporary graffiti’ in January, he has recruited more than 300 fans on both his Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Comments left behind by fans include ‘This rocks’, ‘This is great’, and, from one overseas teen: ‘Wow, can I take this idea and do it in my country?’

To check out the artist’s daily archive of ‘Post-it’ art, go to

http://thingsweforget.blogspot.com

140-character Tweets just cannot describe our colourful lives

LIKE my friend says, a Tweet sounds like the sound a car makes as you back dangerously close to the kerb.

When you finish chuckling over the silly name of the latest social media application Twitter, let’s move on with our lives.

After all, life is more colourful, complicated and crazy than can be contained in 140 characters, which is all the Web/cellphone service allows a user to beam to his ‘followers’ at a go.

So at the risk of being searched out and sent threatening Tweets – which actually, when you say it out loud doesn’t sound very scary at all – I’m going to say I’m not enamoured with Twitter so far.

I find it funny that we young things, who love nothing more than the sound of our own voices and have an opinion on everything, can confine ourselves to just that tiny burst of text.

That’s why they had to invent a system so that too-long cellphone text messages could be sent as a single one, instead of being cut off at 160 characters.

In fact, in Japan, no one sends text messages – they send e-mail from their phones.

So people just send more Tweets (that’s what each message is called), to convey what they want to say.

Which has been contributing to the problem of too much spam.

Also, the last I heard, talkshow host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres and rap star MC Hammer were exhorting their fans to join the fun. Yet, as more people find the fun too legit to quit, the noise of irrelevant messages also grows.

Sure, we could remove those noisy, irrelevant feeds, but if these people are our real-life friends, imagine the animosity – and sarcastic Tweets to everyone else – when they find out they’ve been blocked.

Plus, they know where you live.

The popularity of Twitter, which has about 14 million users now, is still a far cry from that of social network Facebook, which has more than 200 million users.

But it seems its burgeoning popularity has been too hot to handle for its makers.

For one thing, hackers have attacked the service numerous times, exposing how flawed it is.

Actress and singer Miley Cyrus has been a frequent target – her Twitter was hacked and her supposed sexual antics with a friend broadcast earlier this year.

Also, new users have to deal with the barrage of conventions in this brave new world. There are ‘dm’s’ or direct messages, ‘rt’s’ or re-Tweets, hash (#) tags, just to name a few.

But most of all, I find that Twitter is just over-shortening our life experiences.

I want to tell my friends that the cold I was suffering from made my bones ache, that I was huddled up in bed for five days, and I don’t think I can go to the karaoke with my squeaky sore voice. The shortened version of ‘feeling sick’ just doesn’t elicit the same sympathy.

So stop a-tittering, and if you are counting characters, make them the real people you surround yourself with.

Twitter: Hot or not?

THE Feminist Mentor is my friend on Twitter.

Well, I’m not sure if it was really Dr Thio Su Mien who acquired a Twitter account and added me during Aware’s impassioned, seven-hour extraordinary general meeting (EGM) at Suntec City on May 2.

But whoever helmed that account certainly showed her – or his – humorous side.

For the uninitiated, Twitter is an online service that allows a user to post short updates called ‘tweets’ under 140 characters in length onto a profile page and the pages of other users who ‘follow’ him. Call it the ‘SMS of the Internet’, if you will.

‘Feministmentor’ kept the hundreds of Singaporeans and foreigners who followed the events in real time outside the venue, and even outside of Singapore, entertained with tweets like:

‘Reminder: Parking at Suntec City is $1.07 per hour.’

‘We haven’t taken out our secret weapon yet. I’m getting someone who just came back from Mexico to sneeze in the hall.’

‘I’m calling McDelivery. Anyone in Hall 402 want to share the delivery fee?’

Jokes and jibes aside though, Twitter is now the darling of new media exponents, including yours truly.

Traditional media not allowed into an event like Aware’s EGM until many hours later? With Twitter, anyone can be a wannabe reporter, armed only with a mobile phone with Internet access.

Not present at an important event?

Just follow other users who are tweeting as eyewitnesses.

Basic hygiene and meal times flew out the window as I stared transfixed at my laptop at home for more than six hours following the real-time Aware feed, as if it was a live soccer match.

Twitter, though, is not just for sharing news as soon as they break. It’s an entire lifestyle condensed into bite-size chunks.

Got a witty or contemplative thought? Tweet it and entertain your followers before it escapes your mind:

‘A shoe has been thrown at Wen Jiabao! We should take bets on which world leader will be next.’

‘The Arctic is thawing alarmingly and opening up fresh sea lanes. And all nations can do is to fight for exclusive economic zones?’

‘Solution to waking up on time for morning exams: Go to sleep so early it becomes biologically impossible to sleep beyond the beginning of exam time.’

‘Jack Neo! Are you watching the Aware EGM? The script for ‘Mentor No Enough’ is right before your very eyes.’

It’s unfair to dismiss Twitter merely as a repository for inane comments like: ‘I just took a dump’, ‘What should I have for dinner today?’, or ‘Bored. Very Bored.’

Like blogs, a Twitter feed’s value stems largely from the eloquence and expressiveness of its creator. Unlike blogs, Twitter thankfully doesn’t give over to massive bouts of verbal diarrhoea.

In the two years since I’ve started tweeting, I’ve learnt to be more careful with my choice of words in order to create the greatest impact or describe an event or feeling with the least words.

It helps when I am churning out newspaper articles or academic essays with strict word limits – sometimes less is more.

After all, isn’t brevity the soul of wit?

Eisen Teo, 24, is an honours student in history from NUS. Follow him at twitter.com/eisen.