The TERROR of EMAIL!!!

Yes. There are many things told in favor if increased use of internet as medium of communication, even in the level of interpersonal and small group communication. By Internet, it is not only the World Wide Web (WWW) but also many features of it like email being the mostly used and others include blogs and social networks like Myspace and Facebook. Yes. They have greatly contributed in easing the way we communicate. They have really virtually eliminated the limitations of time and space. And they have greatly eased the way we work.

However, there are a lot of hazards that the internet brings to you. I would like to recall one that I recently faced. I just updated my profile at Facebook and it sent a notification to all friends in the network that I am recently MARRIED. Actually, I am married for two years now and observing my second wedding anniversary on this December 5. Luckily, my wife didn’t see it (Because, thankfully, she is not in the facebook), and I am saved.

Emails frequently create terrible hazards. Spam and junk emails are big burden to manage if you are a busy person. We will need to spend additional hours in the Internet even to route these emails to other places where you won’t be burdened and the time you probably may not have. For that, I hardly use my yahoomail account.

The other thing in frequent practice among us is to forward any emails, without thinking whether the recipient will ever want to read this or not. In the past, I was terrified by some of the mails which told unusual nonsense stories and urged me to forward this email to as many friends as possible. If I didn’t do that anything but bad luck will come to my door. Isn’t it an emotional blackmailing? Even to misuse or rather abuse God’s name for such nonsense stuffs? Of course, anybody is attached with God and can’t just ignore such things. Thankfully, now I am an atheist and can right at the moment delete such things but once I used to be in very much tension. I have even angrily replied to those who sent such things but the trend is still speeding up.

Nowadays, people joining the social spaces are increasing. There is no doubt that at this millennium, we are the part of the Global village. The social spaces are of course, the tools of creating such village. But the hazards they are bringing is tremendously bad. Every next day, there will be dozens of friends’ request in your facebook- some of them from whom you really don’t know? What is the purpose of enlisting such people as ‘friends’?

Another hazard is the ‘fusion’ of social spaces and emais. Like Facebook, there other social networks like Hi5, Zorpia and many others. I have got at least two hundred requests to join and fed up of deleting these things. Just being scared of this terror, I am thinking of being selective on giving email address to the friends. I think making a commitment with a fried that s/he won’t send any such nonsense stuffs before sharing the email id will be a good idea.

I know there are hundreds of such stuffs and I hope you will also like to share them. The floor for discussion is open. Go to the Comments.

Be a happy internet user and also do care about other’s privacy and respect their precious time.

First Update from Dhaka

I wonder why I could not make even a single entry in the last three months. Especially, as I arrived Dhaka on September 2, I should have mentioned about that. It marked a shift in my life. Back in Nepal, I was a Communications Officer of a reputed NGO and Lecturer in two prominent colleges in Kathmandu. I took the decision of giving up these all the perky jobs to achieve something and flew to Dhaka to join Regional Masters in Journalism, Media and Communication. It is a regional program jointly launched by Dhaka University (Bangladesh), Oslo University (Norway), College of Journalism and Mass Communication (Kathmandu, Nepal) and University of Punjab (Lahore, Pakistan). We are 26 students, six from Nepal and the rest from Bangladesh.

My experience in Dhaka is really different to what I thought it may be like before I came here. There are a lot of good people who really love Nepal and Nepalese. Too many people in the streets and many beggars sometimes create nuisances. It is far hotter than Kathmandu and the food habit is different, luckily rice and dal makes the main food. After nearly two months, we are happily settled in the International hall of the University. In the hall, we feel like home because nearly 50 Nepalese students are staying here and students operate their own mess.

The University of Dhaka is an ideal place to study. The University established in 1921 bears the pride and was known as 'Oxford of the East'. It is the residential University and majority number of nearly 35,000 students stay in the residential Halls. Most of the teachers of the University and especially in the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism are well qualified, learned and trained and the teafching styles they employ are interactive. Virtue or sin of Dhaka is that it is like the centre of pirated books. Far more variety of books than in Kathmandu are found in very cheaper price. I hope to collect a lot of books in media studies and take them back home after completing two years of study.

Stay in Dhaka or any part of Bangladesh is cheaper. That's why many Nepalese students choose this destination graduate and Post graduate courses especially in medicine, pharmacy, engineering and other faculties. Rickshaws make inevitable part of life here. It is sometimes difficult for those who came from relatively opener society like of ours because Bangladesh is somehow closed society and even drinking is prohibited.

In these two years, I am trying to see the images of South Asia that the global media are showing to the rest of the world. Globalization of news, stereotyping, othering and common practices in the South Asia are my areas of interest in media studies while Gender also significantly attracts me.

I hope to upload my articles about media studies in the separate blog mediadiscourses.blogspot.com. Please keep visiting it as well.