USERNAME: VIRTUAL ME

                Welcome User, to the virtual world. Please sign up. It’s for free! You can connect, chat and share photos, videos, music and anything you like with anybody, anywhere in the world.

Globalisation is interconnectedness, an interaction of people from all over the world. It makes the world a kind of global village, where everyone can get involved in everybody’s business. It also helps to increase the pace of development. The media is the fastest developing entity. A Blackberry mobile with its QWERTY keypad and roll over sensor, outdated an ordinary mobile with an insensitive keypad. But within a span of 2-3 years the Blackberry mobile itself was outdated by the ipad and iphone. Laptops too, are slowly losing out to tablet PC’s. The media has deceloped into an integral part of our life. It has subtly entwined itself with our lives that to a certain extent it has come to define us.

                

Shakespeare said, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” But with the modern media it is,”To say or not to say, that is the question.” The media is open and accessible to all. Anyone with the desire to communicate can make use of it. The phrase “and I quote” is slowly losing its significance. We need not find our voice in the words of others.The media is giving each one of us a voice. It is giving us the power to speak out, to express our thoughts and feelings. Therefore, the need to quote another person is becoming less because now, each one of us has the power to say, what we feel. ‘I can create my own quotes.’

                

Some of the benefits of this fast-paced media are that information is easily available. Time and energy expended in retrieving information from books is greatly reduced. Besides, it allows us to multi-task. It gives us the opportunity and freedom to market ourselves by developing new ways of communicating. Our skills and talents can be exhibited and shared to a large audience. On the other hand, the virtual world reduces personal contact. We do not know the person behind the username except what he/she chooses to reveal and even that may be false. Thus, there is a great risk involved especially in making friends on social networking sites. Another danger is cyber crime, one example I would like to highlight is, hacking, which in turn could be used to blackmail and manipulate.

Media is God’s gift to us. The manner in which we use it and for what purpose, are placed entirely in our hands. In a world which is deeply influenced by media, sitting back and remaining ignorant won’t do. The right approach would be an open one coupled with the readiness to learn how to operate various media, in order to use them to communicate more effectively. We are in the generation of the media and the media plays a vital role in our lives. Let us be effective users of the media and be vigilant against becoming used by the media.

Cl Ian Pinto sdb