CNY greetings! God Bless Obama and his White House (COM)

Well, it’s the fourth day of the Chinese Luna New Year, and the festive mood is slowly starting to die down. I love this festive holiday, as it gives me the excuse to buy clothes and of course, there’s food all around us, what more I can ask for? Indeed, I guess I have over indulged in too much the past few days, just the fact that I got 4 different brands of Bak Kwa in my house probably speaks a lot, or 6 different types of pineapple tarts to start of with! Haha, all thanks to my parents with their good working relationships with all their client. Despite the economic recession, I guess we all should pull ourselves away, and bask in the mood. My cousin did mention that Chinese new year won’t be the yearly affair without the traditions that we do every year like the various Cantonese cuisines that we prepare for meals, the games that we play, etc. A reunion dinner not at home would just seem strange too.

I came across a news that I would like to discuss over the past few days. In conjuction with the New Year, the White House email system actually crashed, and the Obama’s aides had to resort to using the pen and paper method to get their work done. You can read more from the article posted on the internet –
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/ITeS/White_House_email_system_crashes/rssarticleshow/4035849.cms
I found it pretty hilarious when I first came across the article. The White House is the heart of the country where many decision making takes place, and information is circulated around. It’s the core of communication of the US political ground. Therefore, it’s pretty embarrassing for something of such to happen, don’t they have a back-up server ? Well I believe that communication have gone on to a whole new meaning with the introduction of technology. Now people communicate through various platforms from email to text messages to online chats. I guess it’s something that we can’t avoid in the modern world, and it saves time. Such interactive model of communication is currently practiced on a global scale, however I believe that there are a a few disadvantages along with it. Take for example, in the office environment that I worked with a few months back. Though the staff would be well within talking range of one another, they would instead send emails to each other to discuss matters or seek confirmation. The simple reason behind that is they want to keep the emails as evidence on what the other party promised. Through normal conversations, there won’t be any documented evidence that can prove who is telling the truth, if one of them decides to go against his word. The people’s perception are influenced by psychological factors, they do not trust each other and fear that any mistakes made would get them into hot soup, thus by using documented evidence would prove them innocence. So, everytime when I step into my workplace, I know that there are conversations going on every minute. Emails shooting above my head from one cubicle to another cubicle, but the place just seem rather quiet. This is practiced in many organizations and workplace. To me, such communication just reduced the warmth and sincerity of pure conversations. In a normal transactional model of communication, one can get feedback from the other, and his reply would be influenced by the other party’s body language, emotions and expressions. But through email, it’s brought about to be cold, and hard form of getting the message across and getting things done.

I believe this also applies to text messages as well. The introduction of text messages was meant for a form of communication for people who wished to deliver a short message or reminder to someone without having the trouble to call the person because both parties maybe inconvenient to pick up the call. Text messages share the same features of emails except they are much shorter, and have a different purpose of use after all. Nevertheless, though text messages maybe useful in our everyday lives, I feel that we shouldn’t over depend on it. There have been many instances whereby, I have misinterpreted the messages that closed ones sent to me. Because the text messages do not hold any emotions or expressions with it, unlike a normal conversation, it’s very easy for one to jump to conclusion that the sender may meant an underlying meaning that he might not mean. You may probably think that the sender meant to be sarcastic to you, however in actual sense, he just meant it out of good will with no harm intended. Thus text messages have caused me to have misunderstanding with loved ones in that sense, whereby I over conclude or perceive it to be of other meaning. Personally I feel that it’s a dangerous form of communication if both parties are communicating on sensitive issues. When it comes to deep issues or problems to be discussed, upfront conversations are just the best method to get the meaning across. Furthermore I would like to add that, breaking up a relationship via text message is one of the most irresponsible thing to do as well.

I believe that one of Obama’s key to winning is the ability to use technology to reach out to the IT-savvy people out there to get their attention and votes. Though, its not the best way for him to communicate with them, but it’s the smartest way to do so, because it’s a widespread practice and it’s the only way to get to these people. The fact that he embraces technology probably distinct him from his other candidates. Being a technophile myself, I applaud his idea. I hope that the white house get their emails system back up on time! Now it’s off to the gym to burn off those extra calories from pineapple tarts and bak kwa. Have a good festive season ahead! =)