…of social media
Anyone who had any doubts about social media making the world go round nowadays would’ve had them disappear like a snowflake in hell after Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp suddenly went down on Monday. With Facebook having about 3 billion users plus another 1.2 billion on its Messenger, Instagram having another billion and WhatsApp having 2 billion, you’ve got almost the entire world of 7 billion covered!! So, imagine the scenario when none of these persons could communicate with each other.
It used to be asked that if a tree falls in the middle of the forest and no one hears it, did the tree really fall? Well, now we gotta ask whether all those millions of very important people, whose every sneeze gets covered by social media, really did anything on Monday? If it wasn’t covered, it never happened, did it? But honestly, folks, as a contributor to the old line media – that’s being degutted by social media, your Eyewitness must confess to a certain amount of gloating and schadenfreude when he realised what was happening – especially to all these young whippersnappers – when the platforms went down.
You’d think his neighbourhood had turned into a set for Night of the Living Dead!! Kids were walking around with shocked or blank faces as if in a stupor. None of those bouncy steps that they used to make when chatting with whoever from across the world on WhatsApp! But there were also some positives: There was none of those Guyanese talk shows over Facebook, haranguing folks about how come the PPP isn’t fixing their hangnail!! Well, Governments are elected to fix ALL problems, aren’t they? But then this Government wasn’t ELECTED, but INSTALLED! One wonders what installed Governments are supposed to be doing.
But seriously, folks, we gotta stop and take stock as to where social media are taking us. It’s like when the motor car was invented…it set up a whole new set of social expectations about folks visiting each other. And made suburbs possible, as cities were abandoned to become inner city ghettoes that bred crime and social death. Same thing with social media. Folks now have expectations of being in touch with others – not even SIGNIFICANT others – 24/7!! Bosses now expect to call you in the middle of the night to get that project you left hanging completed!!
If your WhatsApp message’s double grey ticks don’t turn blue, you get offended that the party on the other end doesn’t think you important enough to glance at your message! Offices might just become like shopping malls in the US – obsolete, as folks work out of their homes on social media. Zoom anyone?
Your Eyewitness could hear a global collective sigh – of relief and dismay! – when the services returned.
…On Arbitral Award
Your Eyewitness was really pleased (he really CAN’T say “tickled pink”) when he saw that announcement of the 122nd Anniversary on Oct 2nd of the full and Final Arbitral Award that settled the demarcation of the border between us and Venezuela. This was the first time, your Eyewitness believes, that the anniversary was commemorated. And this is just the sort of thing we ought to be doing more of, to create a sense of awareness of our stand on the border controversy that Venezuela has been hanging over our heads since 1962.
Your Eyewitness is calling on the Ministry of Education to insist that the covers of all exercise books for our schoolchildren have this date emblazoned on them: Oct 2nd – every blade of grass belongs to us! The Ministry of Sport must host tournaments on this day in honour of “Arbitral Day”! Yes, it should be a holiday!!
That should get our kids patriotic!!
…on sugar workers
It’s been four years since the PNC shuttered 4 sugar estates and fired 7000 sugar workers. The ones from GuySuCo finally received severance pay. But how to survive until new employment?
The $250,000 grant for Christmas announced by the VP is a start.
