Today, I woke up feeling like someone just used me as a punching bag the previous day. I felt my muscles pretty sore, which must be due to all the exercise I was not acclimatized to. I felt rather old to feel this way because I did not find the previous day's exercise so intense. I admit that some adrenaline rush during the event probably helped me perform better and gave me some extra energy. Speaking about the event I realize that most of the booths have games with one similarity - they want the participants to "like" and "follow" their Instagram page. It felt rather awkward for people like me as I do not have an Instagram account. So I just gave a polite smile, nodded, and left each of the booths. I am often peer-pressured to open up an account but despite all the persuasions, I do not see a good reason to own an account. I would like to mention that I am trying to minimize my cyber footprint but that would sound hypocritical as writing a blog itself contributes to a significant amount of cyber footprint. Maybe I feel slightly shielded here as it is a less popular platform and I am technically "anonymous" except to the very few who know the person behind this blog.
I was moved to create an Instagram account to follow some traders thinking that maybe I could learn from whatever they share but in the end, I just gave up as most of the postings did not have much content. Instead, I think watching videos on YouTube to learn something is more worthwhile and productive. The same goes for Tik-Tok, I created an account for the same purpose but in the end, I deleted the app as I find myself inadvertently spending my time watching meaningless videos. I find it funny that my superiors think I belong to the "younger" generation and remarked that I could easily come up with a Tik-Tok video. I think most people my age or older than me have more social media apps than me. I would never use social media if it was not because of work. I still remember the peaceful days when sending a text message was expensive and how each message was precious. The days when regular people used landlines and cell phones were a luxury. Those days our privacy and time were protected and people actually have a lot of time for themselves. I was very happy with my basic cell phone which I often did not carry during university days and would lock it in my locker. Sadly, the moment I stepped into society, I was forced to purchase a smartphone to use WhatsApp as the main communication tool for work-related matters.
I think it is high time that organizations have their own messaging platform so that we can separate our work life from our personal life. I think it should be a great sin to bother someone beyond their working hours especially if they are on leave. Somehow I secretly wish that someone would hack into those social media apps that are rampantly used by organizations as tools of communication which I find to be quite worrisome. For example in the healthcare sector, patient's details, photos, and diagnoses are being shared in group chats or individual chats which I do not think is appropriate. There was once, during the pandemic, due to financial constrain, clinical notes were typed into Microsoft Word and stored on a Google Drive. How is this even safe? If one does not want to pay for the maintenance of confidentiality then be ready to pay a huge price later on by getting unnecessary lawsuits if things go wrong. I am not saying technology is bad, but there should be a proper way on how technology is being used.
Another thing that makes me feel extremely sore is when I open my phone in the morning and see a huge load of messages coming in but most of them are "junk". As much as I value a simple typed "good morning", I am not thrilled with the forwarded images of good mornings and well wishes if it occurs daily - something I just do not know how to politely tell some of the people around me to not hurt their well-meaning gesture. It would be nice to wake up to just important necessary message and probably greetings from people who matters and they are in the form of typed text or original pictures and not forwarded images. I mean I enjoy seeing selfies of people, their pets, or food but I just dislike circulated non-original messages. Then there's the spammer in each family group who would forward all the "good" stuff they watch online. I just find it a cognitive burden especially when I am "tagged" to watch them and give my opinion or feedback on whatever is being circulated. It is easy for people to say that if I don't like it just ignore it and disable auto-download of media. Yes, I did disable auto download functions but I still feel bothered by it. I also do not have any notifications enabled so that I can choose to see my phone at whichever time suits me.
I do wonder what will happen if someday all the chat logs get exposed. I guess for some it does not matter as there is nothing to hide. *Yawn*
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