Week in Review: Stupid gets stupider?

  • Even in a slow week, issue finds its way to the attention of netizens
  • Illustrates a deeper point about us being ‘always on,’ but at what cost

Week in Review: Stupid gets stupider?NOT surprisingly, as we wind down the year, this has been a slow week … a lazy week almost. Hmm, can an entrepreneur have the word “lazy” in his vocabulary?
 
Well, we at Digital News Asia (DNA) think nothing of saying it as it is, and so lazy and slow-paced week it has been then!
 
But because we say it as it is, we still got a blockbuster story in and we did not even break it. It was our alert peers at Amanz.my, the leading Malay language tech site, who ran an article on what criteria the Government has settled on in determining who qualifies for the RM300 million worth of smartphone subsidies announced during Budget 2013.
 
We picked up on the article and A. Asohan wrote a short but sharp commentary on what he thought of the whole thing. To say our traffic shot through the roof would be an understatement!
 
It just goes to show that even when on holiday, people will still make time to read anything interesting and spicy. And with connectivity and social media a 24x7 way of life now, news will find you.
 
As proof of this, not that I need to convince anyone, I got a message complaining about the harsh tone of the commentary from a senior government technocrat who is overseas. It was in the dead of the morning where he was but Asohan’s commentary still found its way to him and he immediately shared his feedback with me.
 
The smartphone subsidy, though there are some merits to it, has become the latest lighting rod that illustrates poor planning by the Government when dealing with taxpayer money.
 
The age bracket that starts at 21, the voting age, just shouts out to many that it is an election gimmick. If they had just lowered it to 18, the resistance against it would not have been so bad.
 
There is really no excuse for this. Somebody screwed up bad. Hence, the Government getting skewered by netizens.
 
But let me end on this point about us being “always on”. That has to be one of the major trends that has cemented its place in our lives this year. That’s when a trend stops being trendy and is just a way of life. I am sure we have lost something in this but have we gained more than we lost? I don’t know.
 
I remember recently going to bed around midnight and the wife was still up but about to drift off into sleep. What would have been a few minutes of sleepy, dreamy small talk about the day was lost as I wanted to send off a quick email, “just give me a minute” I would have probably said. But when I was done, the missus was in dreamland already.
 
Here’s wishing all of you a brilliant 2013. May you finally take the step from thought to action in making your dreams come through!

Previous Installments:

Week in Review: It's all about the money

Week in Review: Mat Rakyat to be the ultimate winner in spectrum race

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