Ethical Use Of Technology And The World Wide Web

Mimoh Likmabam *

An Opte Project visualization of routing paths through a portion of the Internet
Pic Courtesy : wikipedia.org

I think photocopy is literally correct than Xerox. But Xerox was the way it was meant to be!! I doubt many people know that 'Xerox' is the name of a company. It doesn't mean getting a photocopy of our documents. But this is just an example.

Let me get straight to the point. People have a misinformation/misguidance/misconception on how to use and refer to technology and the internet, and for some geek like me, it is not right when the society tells me that technology and such things are not the tools for development. It would be wrong to assume that they pollute the young minds, that they deteriorate the society. We don't have high speed, reliable broadband connections in Manipur.

But we do own smartphones with 3G connections here. How do we use them mostly? Facebook, porn, most probably sexting and sometimes to download songs and movies illegally from the internet. They were not solely created for such personal desires, they can be of great help in developing general knowledge, one's character, outlook and quality too.

Technology and internet when combined together is of very huge power, no single government, no society can stop it. Remember what our famed actor 'Bonny' said in the movie 'Thajagi Maihing', "Ei na phone asigi button ama metpada ng gi punsi kari oiba yai khangbra?" That's the dark side what everybody sees!!

But not everybody sees the bright side, and people often take to bad criticism, instead of taking up steps to correct them. More than half of the story lines in the Hollywood movies always have some relation with computers and the internet, I think they almost do the same thing in real life too!! So I think we need to remind ourselves that 'With great power comes great responsibility'.

Back in 1997 I got to watch the movie, Titanic. The scene my elders emphasize was that of the 'Jack' and 'Rose' intimate moment. How would I develop to the urge to know that this very movie got 11 Oscars awards out of 14 nominations and that it was a record. Instead I'm being misled. If I had gone this way, Life would have been miserable for me when associated with technology and the World Wide Web. Fortunately that didn't happen to me.

Had we known properly why technology and the internet, we would not have misused them. If all of us had known the real reason why and how social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter were developed, video sharing apps like Whatsapp, Wechat are produced, SMS and MMS service are being integrated into mobile phone service on top of the call services that are a compulsion, I reckon the society's notion on technology and the world-wide-web will change.

The name itself tells you what they are for, they for 'socializing', 'sharing' and 'communication'. Technology and the internet can be of great resource to the development of a society like ours. So why do we still indulge mostly on personal desires and leisure using technology and the internet, instead of using them for developing? As I have said before it is due to misguidance, misinformation and misconception. This has happened because all of these great tools came at a very unfortunate time of us, a time when load shedding are over-regular, rather than electric current being regular, let's just forget about 24 hour electricity at the moment and also at a time when the national newspapers arrive more than a day late, to name a few.

We had no proper guidance on how to use these tools properly which in turn leads to a way that is much easier for us to find ourselves and much easier to follow, the improper way. Even sex which is a natural phenomenon has so many books on how to do it properly! We had no one to tell us what's wrong and what's right on the usage of these 21st century tools because even ours elders are foreign to it.

We just had mere mouth-to-mouth guidance of which half of are not true and half of them makes no sense at all. So we need to find out ourselves on the ethical use of technology and the internet. The solutions are within oneself, for one has to develop a good and a broad outlook when they refer to technology and the internet. We can find unlimited information on the internet, when combined with it, computers and mobile phones can be of a great resource to us.

As for example, if you are unsure about the medicine the doctor prescribes, you can cross check them on the internet. You can find Do-It-Yourself instruction on how to carry out simple repairs on your prices possession such as your cars, motorcycle. Students can take a lot of help from Wikipedia while doing their homework and assignments. By the way www.wikipedia.com is website of the largest online encyclopedia. We can find out about the personal lives, instead of the lives they live on-screen, of our idols, favorite actors, singers on the web, which in turn can be of great inspiration to our lives.

Online business is also an undeniable resource. Upcoming artist can increase their exposure on sites like Instagram, Soundcloud. You can find any information on anything on the internet. Even information on the current interest of our state, AFSPA, 1958. We can even learn our own 'Meitei-mayek' online on e-pao.net. You can create music just by using your smartphone, before going professional with real instruments.

Also ethical use of such can decrease the rate of those nasty MMS and video clips scandals occurring every day, if it can't be completely stopped. Hope this is an eye opener to my fellow mates, so that our parents, the society, and most importantly to those who speak ill of such great 21st century tools. 'Akhoi swaida da mobile atangba, laptop atangba mayam na pungpai painei haina painaba doh fajana sijinase natradi paisa doh lemna manganiye!!'