Eileen

FACEBOOK I started using Facebook in the year 2009. Before using the social network website 'Facebook', I have been using Friendster instead since year 2006. However it seems like no one has entered Friendster ever since Facebook has turned popular. In order to follow the trend of using Facebook to connect with friends, I stopped using Friendster and switched to Facebook instead. Indeed, Facebook has captured my attention right from the start, and until now I am still an active user in Facebook. As of July 2010, Facebook has more than 500 million active users. Facebook has also become the top social network in Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Vietnam. I feel that Facebook edges over Friendster is Facebook has games applications such as Frontier Ville, Mafia Wars, FarmVille, Restaurant City and Pet Society etc. Another unique thing about Facebook is it has many quizzes, especially quizzes on psychology, relationships and personality, which attract me. I also like several features such as wall post, comments, notifications, creating events to inform friends, join groups and most importantly, able to see my friends' latest updates where I can gauge how are they doing currently from the photos they have uploaded and the posts they have written and catch up with them. Facebook sees the importance of privacy and users are able to customize who are able to view their profile. Facebook is an addictive social website, just like Blogspot and Twitter. With so many social networks around nowadays such as Twitter, MySpace etc, Facebook has to compete with these social networks by maintaining and grow its current members. It has to upgrade its layout constantly and introduce new features that are appropriate and user friendly to its users. Or else it may end up like Friendster, resulting users to switch to another popular social network such as Twitter. However, Facebook has met with some controversy. The social network has been blocked in a few countries; Pakistan, Syria, the People's Republic of China, Vietnam, Iran, Uzbekistan and North Korea. It is also banned at many workplaces to discourage employees from wasting time using the service.

Orchard River

Have you ever thought of people being rescue from stranded cars as flood hits Orchard Road and the day it became Orchard River? Well it actually happened in Singapore, a busy city and a tourist attraction (Orchard Road) The flood was really unexpected.

One had to spend 2 hours driving her car through knee-deep flood water in Newton Road morning. She also racked up a hefty repair bill of possibly up to $15 000 as water had seeped into her car's engine. She was among hundreds of people who were trapped in vehicles or late for work after a massive downpour caused floods in the central areas of Singapore, including Orchard, Newton and Bukit Timah. About 100mm of rain fell in central Singapore between 8am and 11am. The amount of rainfall is more than 60 percent of the average monthly rainfall for June.

The flood took about an hour to subside. A manager took half an hour sloshing through 7cm high water to get from Orchard MRT station to his office. The Orchard MRT underpass was flooded and so was the road along Shaw Centre to Pacific Plaza and resulting to him ran across the road as fast as he could to find some high ground at hopping centres. It was serious as it came to the point that 2 fire engines had to help about 60 passengers get out of 2 SBS Transit double-decker buses and 10 people to leave six cars. The Starbucks cafe at Liat Towers' basement was almost submerged at about 10am.

Video games make brain nimbler

Have you ever thought of video games can make brain nimbler? Or all along you or your parents feel that video games will affect your studies and may be addictive in long term?

Well it has been supported by research that 4 psychology students from NTU (School of Humanities and Social Sciences) found that playing game Bejeweled 2 nurtured superior cognitive abilities, such as improved attention to detail, response time and an ability to plan ahead. It is encouraged for students to play 10 hours of Bejeweled 2 a week. Playing 10 hours for a week is not harmful and may be a way to relax. Results show that those who played Bejeweled 2 improved their test results. They are able to ignore distractions and this translated into improved visual attention and spatial acuity. This game makes high demands on visual perception, attention and planning. Hence video game playing can be possible to improve performance in everyday life. A computer game gives instant rewards that encourage players to stay focused.

I believe every game has a strategy, hence for my case, after attempts of playing and in order to secure a high score, I will plan my own strategy. Maybe through try and error, I will know which strategy can work and which cannot work. Hence it may be true to a certain extent that video games may make brain turns nimbler. Well I choose this article because it may educate the parents not all games are bad for their child. I believe some games can stimulate the mind, such as Bejeweled 2 and Rush Hour.

Man raped daughter, had 7 kids with her

Read the heading of this post. I was really shocked when I saw the heading of this article.

It's about a man, age 54 in a remote fishing village in Brazil imprisoned his daughter, age 28 for 12 years, raped her repeatedly and had 7 children with her. The man is also accused of abusing a young girl he had with his daughter. The 7 children appeared to suffer from malnutrition and could barely communicate. They were all threatened with their lives if they tried to escape or tell anyone about the situation. The alleged abuse began when his wife left him in 1998. Currently, his daughter and the 7 children, aged 2 months to 12 years are now in state custody.

The whole matter is totally inhumane. How could the man did that to his daughter? Is it because his wife left him and he could not accept the harsh reality, hence he vented all his anger on his daughter? Did he feel guilty and remorse in the process when he raped his daughter?

Orders for iPhone 4G top 600 000

Who does not own any electronic gadgets nowadays? Due to technology, I strongly believe everyone at least own either a handphone, laptop or mp3 player, isn't it?

I believe these years Apple has proved itself successful by releasing many new products such as iphone, MacBook Pro and recently, iPad and iPhone 4G. These products have definitely caught the world's attention. I believe few years ago, Microsoft was once famous but it seemed Apple had overtaken its place. Whenever we look for a mp3 player, normally we will think of ipod nano isn't it? Perhaps due to its branding and Apple has built up its own reputation these years. Another catchy thing is Apple products have a really nice design. For smartphones, although there are brands like Samsung Omnia, HTC, Blackberry etc, but seems iPhone is still the best hit among consumers. Apple remains a fierce contender in the spartphone industry, despite competition from hardware manufacturers.

The popularity of the launch of iPhone 4G can be shown by these quotes on the article, "Apple said it and its partners took more than 600 000 orders for the new iPhone 4 on Tuesday, the first day they were accepted, despite technical flaws that prevented many orders from going through.", "It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions."

This all shows that the Apple magic is still present and so right now, it looks like Apple's popularity with the masses is not going to wane. I still feel that Creative (A brand in Singapore) is really a good brand, and its products are affordable. However, it is not well-known to the masses because of insufficient publicity in mass media or campaigns make known to the public.

Nevertheless, even in facebook, there are status of Apple iPhone 4G is launched and everyone cannot wait to own their very own iPhone 4G. I also hope one day I can own a iPhone 4G too! Well, I guess it is a trend now to see teenagers having their own iPhone from Apple.

Kids Today Don't Chat-They Text

I came across this newspaper article entitled, 'Kids today don't chat-they text'. True enough, I agree to a large extent of this statement.

In the past when technology has not aroused, when there is only telephones and no handphones available, either we tend to call our friends or find time to meet up with them to catch up. However, now when we are late for an outing, what we usually do is to sms them saying, "Sorry, I will be late for half an hour. You all go first, can? When I have reached the destination, I sms you again." We rely too much on technology and sms to convey our messages. Nowadays, we hardly meet up with our friends we know years ago. Because we tend to rely on msn to start a conversation with them, read their personal blog and social networks such as facebook and twitter to know how are they doing.

Even young kids now in primary school own their own personal handphones. For my case, I prefer to text my friends instead of calling them, unless the issue is important then I will call them. Now the debate is if technology is changing the nature of kids' friendships. Will social networks help us to be more connected and supportive of our friends or the quality of interaction is diminished without the intimacy and emotional give and take of regular extended face-to-face time. Although we can webcam with our friends, but do we meet up with them often?

Sometimes when we are texting, we tend to use emoticons to express our feelings. But sometimes the emoticons we use, are they really what we feel deep inside? Or are we suppressing our feelings in order not to offend the other party, even if we feel sad and angry inside, we still put a happy smile in our text?

Also these few years, schools are indulging students to buy a personal laptop for e-learning. It seems like in polytechnic, most students do own a personal laptop. A laptop is highly encouraged in schools for e-learning. Some textbooks even have their own e-textbook. Thus, they may end up relying on technology more. With children's technical obsessions starting at a young age, even kindergarten pupils will play side by side on laptops during play dates. Their brains may eventually be rewired.

For example, there is a case of a 17 year old guy, who keeps up with his friends so much on facebook that he becomes more withdrawn about face to face interactions. When that day is his friend's birthday, instead of giving her a call and wishing her happy birthday, what he does is to go and write happy birthday on her facebook profile wall.

To solve this problem, his mum encourages him to get involved in more group activities after school. Last but not least, is technology controlling us now or the other way round?