The 10 most unexpected consequences of being online

It seems as though the internet has slowly but surely taken over our lives without us even realising it. There are many consequences for being online and these are a mixture of good and bad things. I decided to put together a list of the ones that come to mind first...

1.    We are now able to communicate with people that are not within our usual communication circles.

2.    This leads to the next point which is that we are able to meet and talk to people within our own environments of interest i.e. leaders in the field one has studied in and therefore we are able to grow our knowledge base.

3.    Creating an online profile without even realising it. Just having Facebook, a blog, Twitter or any other type of social media platform, immediately makes you a person of interest on the internet (type in your own name on Google and see how many pages your it takes up – I’ve only just managed to complete the first page, I guess that’s not too bad considering not too long ago I didn’t exist on Google).

4.    You become lazier, in retrospect, as many companies now days use social media tools such as Skype to contact one another.

5.    Plans don’t need to be steadfast anymore as one can change them within seconds and can expect whoever they are meeting to have read the changes via their choice of social media.

6.    Here’s an interesting one; you can now be unknowingly stalked using Facebook and a number of other social media platforms and of course this also means that you can stalk whoever you please without them knowing you have done so...

7.    Businesses are now able to run background checks on their prospective clients and employees before they have even met.

8.    Have a long lost friend you want to contact; well before social media...the phone book was your best friend. Now, you can type in their name in FB and BAM a list of possible names and pictures come up.

9.    Arguing with complete strangers is all the rage when it comes to Twitter and trust me its FUN!

10. Lastly let’s not forgot all that SPAM ADVERTSING that we see on a daily basis and without knowing it we take the information in.

So the internet is changing and it’s doing it at one hell of a speed. That leaves you with the decision whether to turn that into a positive or a negative.

I Prefer Monkeys

When you notice everything. Nothing no longer excists. You analyze. You see. Endlessly putting together loose ends. It’s insane. It’s hard enough to live life as it is. But it get’s even harder when nothing can be shallow. I hate it. I lack social skills because of this. To communicate with me is like talking to a monkey. Most of the time I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Not because I’m stupid, but because I read between the lines. So I hear stuff, the person talking, usually doesn’t even notice saying. Don’t get me wrong, I like being me. I just don’t like others. Talking has turned into something worthless. Which is strange, because usually nobody likes worthless crap. We want our music to be good. We like sophisticated lyrics. We don’t need no superficial poetry. We remember Shakespeare. Bob Dylan. Confucius. Still, when it comes to talking nowadays. We couldn’t care less. Everybody is just full of crap. They talk without knowing. Lie without caring. End up saying Sorry for the 12th time in one conversation.

But isn’t sorry just delayed common sence?

And tell me. What person would trust someone that has no idea once however what he or she is saying? Not because they choose to but because they don’t know better. We don’t use the term much often because we think it’s a mental illness. But in my opinion we’re all pathological liars. And I rather be a monkey that fails talking to peopleover and over again than be an understood pathological liar.

And besides, monkeys are cute…… 

AN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

I have always been the person who tries to face things head on and I HATE lying. Therefore the elephant in the room theory does not technically fit into my lifestyle.

For those of you who don’t know what this saying means, Wikipedia has a good explanation, "Elephant in the room" is an English metaphorical idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. The idiomatic expression also applies to an obvious problem or risk no one wants to discuss.

It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there have chosen to concern themselves with tangential or small and irrelevant issues rather than deal with the looming big one.

The only time I feel this really applies to me is with deadlines because then I have the biggest, fattest, elephant in my room! Anyway I decided to find a poem and a quote to help me out with this idea.

Starting with the poem, “THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM - By Terry Kettering”

There’s an elephant in the room.
It is large and squatting,
so it is hard to get around it.

Yet we squeeze by with,
“How are you?” and, “I’m fine,”
and a thousand other forms of trivial chatter.

We talk about the weather;
we talk about work;
we talk about everything else—
except the elephant in the room.

There’s an elephant in the room.
We all know it is there.
We are thinking about the elephant
as we talk together.

It is constantly on our minds.
For, you see, it is a very big elephant.
It has hurt us all, but we do not talk about
the elephant in the room.

Oh, please, say her name.
Oh, please, say “Barbara” again.
Oh, please, let’s talk about
the elephant in the room.

For if we talk about her death,
perhaps we can talk about her life.
Can I say, “Barbara” to you
and not have you look away?
For if I cannot,

then you are leaving me alone
in a room—with an elephant.

An ending off with a brilliant quote which sums in up so well…

"When there’s an elephant in the room introduce him."
— Randy Pausch

Planking

This is the latest social media craze that has gone seriously viral. I mean the dedication to the cause has even caused one young Australian guy to fall to his death.

So what is planking?? Well if you haven’t heard of it yet, then you are definitely not a tech geek like some of us…Basically it is an activity where one lies face down, hands at your side and toes pointed; in order to look like a plank. Then the fun comes in when you select a specific, unusual, spot to ‘plank’ on.  Once in this position a photo needs to be snapped and then uploaded onto the internet and the ‘plank’ needs to be given a name. The main idea is to try and find the most unusual places to ’plank’.

The game is claimed to have been invented years ago (1997), by Gary Clarkson and Christian Langdon in England. From there it just went wild but well “undercover” wild until the Australians coined the game with the term “planking” in 2011 and this is when people really started to hear about it and get involved.

Anyway of course once I heard about this ‘game’ I had to try it out for myself. Standing in my lecturer’s office, I grabbed to WHEELIE chairs and began my attempt at planking. Well I must inform you that this is definitely and awesome workout especially with wheelie chairs as they are hard to keep still and your abs just get sucker punched. So ladies want an awesome six pack??? Start planking today!!!

C’est la vie

That awkward moment when you’ve already said “what?” three times and still have no idea what the person said, so you just agree.

In high school I got the opportunity to not only learn French but I actually to go over to France and live there for 3 months. I went to school there and made so many incredible friends that I am still in touch with today.

Anyway living in South Africa, I don’t often get the chance to speak French and it sucks because I really want to keep it up and Flying to France every so often is not the answer or feasible. I try every now and again when I find a bouncer or a car guard from an African country that speaks French but again this isn’t the answer as I can’t do it for long enough or regularly.

Last night I was at a friend’s house and they told me they had French friends coming over. I really wanted to chat to them but was nervous and shy that I would be no good and would make a fool of myself. Well by the time they had arrived, I was onto my third glass of wine and had a bit of Dutch courage. I began to chat to them and well what do you know, I could hold my own.

At times I didn’t understand things but I used other words and body language to get me through and in the end I felt good about the conversation. Now all I need is a ticket to France to become fluent…anyone buying?

Every day is a good day

It’s hard to feel this positive when you’re bogged under piles and piles of work but one should always try to look on the bright side.

I have just finished what I would call the week from hell. A week crammed with assignments and tests. 4am was thought to be a normal hour to go to bed after I had finished frying my brain over the days work and then getting up handing it in and well starting all over again...fun no but there is an up side to this situation. At the end of the day I gained knowledge from these eye ball aching hours of work and at the end of this year I plan to ‘take over the world’ well not really but getting my degree is a good start.

Then the other thing one needs to look at is would you be able to enjoy the sunshine if there was no rain; would you even notice the sunshine? We have worked ourselves silly at varsity the past few weeks (last week being the worst) but now we get to enjoy a loooooong holiday something those in the working world don’t even understand with there 2 weeks a year holiday period but they must also be grateful because they have jobs and a lot of people do not.

So in the end there is also light at the end of a day, a month or even a years tunnel so keep your head up and STAY POSITIVE cause trust me it feels awesome!