Whether it be the story of young entrepreneur Larry Page or the popularity of all time Forbes’s headliner Bill Gates; the skyrocketing success of Mark Zuckerberg or the blooming happiness of Jack Dorsey; computer technology has played a great role in each one of these celebrities’ lives.
It is not unusual for any young mind to dream about the fantasy of these prosperous achievers. And it is not impossible either to achieve it, when one has an earnest endeavor. However, the truth is it takes a good bit of time for anyone to succeed. Rome is not built in a day. Every success story has countless hurdles, endless patience and enormous dedication put forth with persistent hard work.
The relocation of the Bhutanese in the very developed countries of the world has plausibly pushed them towards easy ways of achieving any type of dream. Even their existing financial scrutiny reveals that they do not need to compromise their lives with meager aims anymore. But the fundamental question lingering in and around everyone’s mind is if they have been truly heading towards this exuberant future.
In the past few years I have made keen observations on happenings surrounding the world of technology. How the technology could be a boon and a curse depending on its pursuit. I have been pondering over and again on the impact it could have on me and my community folks in short and long run. My worry gets more fuel when I find hundreds and thousands of dollars, earned by our innocent labor, get invested in the unnecessary purchases made on the online stores via internet. I always have had a great swain of the new technology. I strive to dig into the ins and outs of the latest technology but at the end of the day, I just throw myself out with the same frustration, “the one in my hand has gone obsolete”.
The other side of the story is far gut-wrenching. The social media was definitely not meant to spoil the people nor it was created to cause chaos in the life of any one. But, the abuse of these means has devastating impact in our lives.
People get up by logging into the facebook and the last thing they will remember before going to bed is to check the facebook status. A select few buy a new smart phones for hundreds of dollars just to get the facebook updates even when they are on the toilet pan. There are a lot of instances where one gets fired from the job for using this social media in excess. Parents can not control their child from using it. Even the law that forbids the child under 18 years of age from creating the social networking account is not in effect since they lie their age. A two years old boy has a facebook account and not sure if he speaks a word; but constantly updates his pictures in the wall and replies the comments of hundreds of friends and followers.
Social networking media are always good means for expressing oneself. They could be utilized properly to know whereabouts of friends and family irrespective of their geo-location. Raising awareness in some social cause and welfare is another best and the most important aspect of their kind. Nonetheless, with these few enumerated pros, there are hundreds of cons.
Parents are frustrated because their child does not have time to listen to their concerns. Students fail in their exams for they do not have sufficient time to devote for their studies. A couple gets divorce because someone posted some unbearable comments on the facebook wall. A girl is left with nothing except committing suicide since she is exposed by some unknown folks with the fake facebook account with some illicit pictures and private disclosures. Needless to mention, there are thousands of other instances which is just sparing no one nowhere.
Computer games on the other hand certainly count thousands of votes for this discussion. Children do not give a heed to show greetings to their elders since lifting hand from the playstation would significantly drop down their game scores. For them, this turns out to be one of the major contributing factors of distraction, and thus pushes them towards the losing end. Majority of the gaming software manufactures understand the behavior, likes and interests of the child. People relate the mushrooming of gun violence with the video games, and it does make a complete sense to me. The content in the game always leaves a child in the mood of killing and firing bullets to the opponent. This would not implant better and positive thoughts in the child, which down the road could very easily lead to the incidents like the Connecticut Massacre or the Colorado theater shooting in the yesteryears in the USA.
Equally, computer games are the biggest sources for computer viruses. Most of the freewares downloaded from some untrusted sites are always prone to virus attack.
Sometimes, I am taken aback when I listen to comments generated from the parents. “My six years old knows everything about computer”. Definitely, unlike the older generations, the present ones are far ahead due to accessibilities of modern technological opportunities. But, it does not mean they know everything. It may be wise on part of parents to keep their vigilance to what the children around you are doing, or what content they have been watching on the internet. Also, if they are really learning from the computer or they are just killing their valuable time.
What I have learnt in these few years seem worthy to mention here. I have a strong opinion that some of these tips could keep a lot of things under control.
Many of us may not know that we should not expose our social security numbers, phone numbers or any other private information in any of the social networking sites while creating a new account or while updating one’s profile information. Leaving these information on such sites would risk one’s life to the larger extent, since these pages are easily accessible by anyone who is not even in the friend circle.
To add, purchasing stuffs from online store is not a bad idea at all unless you trust the credentials of the website on hand. Internet definitely is not a secure place to enter sensitive information like a credit card number. There are thousands of malicious softwares (malwares) automatically installed and stored in one’s computer while surfing some webpages knowingly or unknowingly. These malwares would easily sniff around your sensitive information leading you to bankruptcy.
Identity theft is another major issue in the internet world. There are thousands of terrorists who are constantly trying to get hold of someone’s identity to misuse it for some mass destruction. One could be the victim of such act if the credential are not secured and exposed to the untrusted internet sites. Hunting jobs via internet could risk your identity because most of the hiring companies need social security number and other personal information for verification. It is always wise on your part to verify the legitimacy of the webpage you are viewing. I have on numerous occasions received some scams from “www.bestbuy.youwin.com”. It is fine to trust “www.bestbuy.com”, as the technology giant but the former could be the scammers website which is trying to get your personal information.
A Windows user may secure the computer with some trusted antivirus programs, which would cost less than a hundred bucks. Truly, it brings you smile as it saves your several hundred dollars that you would spend incase your computer is infected with some viruses.
It is equally wise not to download all the tempting stuffs from internet. Surprisingly, all fairies are physically very weak. Most of the antiviruses come with some parental control system which commissions parents from blacklisting harmful contents in the internet.
Using a very secure password for bank account and any other accounts created online always gets rewarded. Be it a facebook, twitter or any other google accounts, simple passwords are very easy to hack. Secure password is the amalgamation of upper and lower case alphabets, numbers and some other characters like $#*! etc. This characters make the sniffers work a little bit difficult than the simple passwords like “abcde”. Changing your password frequently and not storing it in your wallets or purses or anywhere makes one secure.
Most of the smartphone applications relies on location and/or contact information. If one downloads any apps and if the app is asking for using contacts list and location information, we got to make sure we trust the app manufacturer. In a sense, you are giving it access to view your entire mobile device which contains sensitive information about you.
I personally prefer to use chrome or firefox as my internet browser. The never-ending confrontation amongst browsers always leave Internet explorer with the heap of issues. From my experience, I would recommend a regular update of the software you have in your system. The latest version always will have some bug fixes and the loopholes resolved.
Most importantly, it is always good to clear the cookies (extra piece of information stored in your computer by some website, which may contain your password) from your browser and pay especial attention when logging into any account. Leaving the “Remember my username/password” checkbox unchecked and always logging out of any account after you are done with it is very crucial to be safe. In this way, anyone visiting the same site after you left would not get into your account easily.
A skeptical thought on all occasions towards the progressing technology would undoubtedly isolate anyone from its ravishing charm. I would always join the venture and feel the thrill and give an unprecedented explication for what is good and what is not after using it. Try everything before it is too old. Happy surfing and good luck with new technological advancements.
[Mr. Dhakal is a Web Developer at Boxcar Press based in Syracuse, NY. The views expressed in this write up are solely of the writer who can be reached at [email protected].]
- Kazi Gautam and Buddha Mani Dhakal from the United States edited this article
