Catching Up

“The world has indeed become smaller.” That’s what my dad told me on our way home. This was in the wake of a very long family conference that transpired the night before. My relatives from London, Singapore and Hong Kong were in a video conference, chat and voice calls discussing an immediate family concern. This was a conference I unfortunately had to miss because I was knocked out and deep in slumber. When I woke up, I saw my cousin’s message asking if I wanted to join the conference. That was two hours after they had adjourned.

As if to torment me, my cousin switched her Facebook status to “Thank God for the technology. Just been in a conference with the family.” I asked what happened and she merely said that I had a lot of catching up to do and so that I did through my mum the following day. She was telling me how funny my uncles and aunt were since they couldn’t keep up with the numerous messages on the screen since there were several people typing hence they couldn’t respond right away. They were busy scrolling up and trying to figure out the flow of the conversation. Even the “oldies” now are have learned how to chat and are now “in” on the various methods of connecting with each other. (Case in point, my dad has his own Facebook while his brother (my uncle) added me on YM. Eep. MY world is getting smaller indeed.

Speaking of catching up, the social network Multiply is doing its share of it. It now has a chat function akin to that of Facebook. I was amazed and at the same time baffled as to why Multiply had to add that feature. Who would I want to chat with while I’m uploading my high –res pictures and blogging? This is because I personally consider Multiply as the “quiet” type or my “private” social networking site where I could post whatever pictures I wanted and blogged about something I wanted just me and a few of my friends to see. It was easy and less complicated compared to the newer sites such as Facebook where a lot of people simultaneously post stuff which I can hardly follow. But Multiply has been tweaking itself and trying very hard to keep up (or should I say imitate?) Facebook which is a bit sad. I hope they don’t add games or quizzes next! I prefer Multiply to be “boring” thank you very much.

Now this only goes to show that even the old dogs can be taught new tricks. They (my older relatives and my old trusty Multiply) prove that they can catch up and keep up with other younger and newer technology. Technology continues to revolutionize the world by the minute.