Technology has screwed us up

One day, I was on the bus when two adolescent boys boarded and sat behind me. The usual leg propping I can stand but they opened their mouths and the voice-going-to-break-like-Joanne-Peh noise came out... Then, the teenage angst and vulgarities-ridden conversation surrounded me. Very loudly.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I still had 45 minutes worth of journey ahead and my eardrums were vibrating mightily. So I dug into my bag for my life-savior.



It wasn't there!!!!!!!! I forgot to bring it out!!!!

Yes, I bought my MP3 player to filter out irritating bus conversations and people who are training to join Singapore Idol by humming in buses. It was my longest 45-minute bus ride. I had to endure BGR shit, stuff about pool/billards/snooker, who's chio and who's not... yada yada yada... It was excruciating. I realized I was more tolerant prior to my MP3 player purchase; I can filter things more easily and had very selective hearing. My filtering system was spoiled by my MP3 player.

It's not only me. Many things that are now common in our lives have changed us:

Air-conditioner
Can you image enduring a 2 hour lecture/tutorial without a air-conditioned room? What about those times when the bus (ie. 151) came without this technology? My 4-year-old cousin was asking me why we couldn't eat at the foodcourt and had to choose the hot kopitiam. I was amazed. In my time, they had one miserly fan and now, even a tenfold increase, the kid thought it was too hot. Kid, foodcourt fare sucks.

Mobile phone/Cell phone (or the Singapore slang, "Handphone")
Easily the technology most locals cannot do without. When you are free, take the last seat on buses and play the SMS ring tone. Then you can witness the synchronous action of fellow passengers whipping out their phones to check for messages. Then there's the use of a phone as a watch. Whoever wears watch now except for exams when mobiles are to be switched off?

There is also a decrease in the sales of notepads. Simply because mobiles can store our appointments, deadlines AND even set alarms to remind us when that 20-page essay is dued.

You know how sometimes someone in the group pays first and the rest will give him/her their share later because someone did not have change? Then we need to divide the sum into equal portions to pay someone? Traditionally, we use mental calcutation or paper and pen to work out the amount. Now, the trusted mobile makes its appearance and the calculator function saves the day.

I really think many will die without their mobiles.

Keys on the keyboard
Since you are reading a blog, I think you should be quite familiar with the
and its keys. We use them so often that they sometimes seep into our off-computer lives. During a KTV session, my friend wanted to eject a song because we are not really into "Cha Shao Bao". What came out was, "Faster escape the song leh!"

Another incident occurred at my workplace. This guy, who was 40, came for job training and we were explaining to him the keys to press to reflect the mode of payment the customer uses. So it was F10 for Masters and F9 for Visa.. blah blah blah. Then, we let him handle the next purchase, which was paid with Visa. So he pressed the "F" key followed by "1" and "0". Strictly speaking, he WAS on the right track, right??? He just did not know the difference between F10 and F+1+0.

Technology is taking over!

P.s. I'm not a Luddite.