Blogging vs Cafe Talk

Well, it has been close to a month since I have started blogging. Well, response was not good (or was it because my argument is so good nobody commented? Haha!) but that was not the reason why I started a blog in the first place. One of the main reason why I started blogging is to have the possibility of sharing my thoughts to all people who are reading it, from Singapore or overseas. Another reason is the possibility of meeting if new friends who share the same type of thinking, liking and hatred of something.

I found out that there is really some good stuff that happened to me when I started blogging though. It kind of ‘open up’ my senses even more to what is happening around me, making me take in more information then before I started blogging. This is especially true if you make a commitment to contribute to the blog regularly. I also started to think more and deeper. As for writing skills? Well I cannot comment on my own writing skills. I would just have to leave that to the readers. Are there any now? Please respond if you do! Say hello or hi to me please!

I was reading the Sunday Times, my usual routine on a Sunday morning after my morning jog, I came upon a question “Why are so many Singaporeans blogging?”

So here I am again, pondering this question, “Why are so many Singaporeans blogging?”

There could be several reason and I think one main reason could be…. it is better than coffee-shop or café (for youngsters) talk, although there could be a lack of verbal interaction. Since the severe lack of cheap entertainment in Singapore, Singaporeans just want to sit down and have a good chat with their friends. (I have no idea about others; I thoroughly enjoy a good chat with friends, be it full of crap or intellectually stimulating.)

But the problem here is that you can only share this with a small group of people, and the size of this group is very much dependent on the proximity of other tables and the size of the table. (Haha!) Why proximity? Hehe! Politics and policies seem to be one of the best ways to trigger a conversation among friends. And the climate is such that we limit what we talk in the ‘private space’ that we have. Most often talked about subjects would be

1) Fare hike

2) GST increase

3) Elections

4) Opposition and ruling parties

5) Medical costs and insurance

And many more. (Peanuts? Ok, so when has peanuts got to do with politics? Haha!)

So many Singaporeans turn to blogging because the Internet gives them a false sense of security that they can say whatever they want on the Internet. (For those who follow technology news or techie would know this is not the case) So they find it exciting and fun to put their thoughts on the Internet, with the possibilities of sharing their thoughts with the international audience. Which goes to say, the Internet has become a platform for many people to publish their speeches, without the readers or audiences know who is writing it but get to enjoy the ‘gist’ of it. Being a country with very high technology adoption rate and most technology users being youngsters, more and more Singaporeans are going to blogging to voice out their pleasure and displeasure.

Anyway, for those of you who have not started blogging, I strongly encourage you to start one although it can be time consuming. Well all you need is to cultivate the habit. (Please read “No Time or No habit”) I thoroughly enjoy the last month of blogging because I have become more absorbent of information and data surrounding me, which is what would give a competitive edge in a knowledge based economy.

Cheers! And happy one month anniversary to my blog in advance! J