Triplicate Thoughts

Social media is taking over news reporting. Image: Lab42 Ever since the turn of the millennium, social media started picking up pace. With various social networks for various situations, more and more adaptation by famous institutes and governing bodies, and of course the rise of smartphones and tablets in consumer markets, social media became huge . Seeing cat videos, pictures of food and cheesy inspirational quotes does get boring, like really boring. But the strength of social media is seen the most in moments of misfortune. I pretty much never read a newspaper anymore. Nor do I watch the news. If you know me, you'll know how much of a technophile I am. Pretty much everything I do, I do online. That includes getting updates on current events, local or global. Whenever there's a missing child in Malaysia, or natural disaster strikes somewhere in the country, or a robbery or murder has been committed ( like this which happened in a neighbouring housing area to mine ), soc...

The horror. Image: The Oatmeal Initially I was going to ask "Could you survive without the internet?", but then after thinking about it I realised, that question didn't make any sense. It would be similar to asking "Could you survive without oxygen?". The internet has become such an integral part of our lives, our businesses, our economy and our society that if the internet were to one day  suddenly  "disappear", I feel like the whole world would fall into anarchy. Some people like me are more dependant on the internet than others. The first thing we do in the morning is go online. The last thing we do at night before going to bed? Go online. What do we do when we're bored? Go online. Those who are less dependant could maybe survive a few days without the internet. A friend of mine recently went 5 days without internet access. It wasn't by choice, but he survived nonetheless. But could anyone survive longer? A month? A few months? A year ...