Welcome to cyber-Kuwait

Tag : skiing shoes

Published Date: July 12, 2008
By Hussain Al-Qatari, Staff writer


I have recently started, more often, to notice the way people speakabout technology a lot - more than they talk about their own lives.

Surely you've noticed that too, with conversations revolving aroundwebsites, blogs and gadgets. Technology is lovely, don't get mewrong. But think of all the information that you feed the Internetthrough your computer. Does it make sense to you that your computerknows things about you that not even the closest people to you haveany idea about?

Perhaps I'm paranoid and am worrying about this subject more than Ishould. Maybe after reading several dystopian sci-fi novels for oneof my classes, I've started to notice, more and more, the sad factthat everything is dependent on technology to a degree that makesit impossible to imagine life with no computers. I must admit, Ican't function without the Internet either, feeling useless withoutit, helpless, as if I were stranded on a secluded island.
This total dependency is quite dangerous. It doesn't seemappropriate that we make our fate dependent on the technology wehave invented.

Here are a few examples of how our world is slowly turning into ane-world. This is cyber-Kuwait!

Websites and social networking:
Social networking? Really? How does that make sense? To socializeis to go out and see people, to converse and have immediateinteraction with them. It doesn't make sense to 'socialize' bysitting at your computer typing silently.

I know a girl who thinks that she has met her significant otheronline. She's a Kuwaiti living in Kuwait and he's an Australian inAustralia. How they schedule their chatting sessions, I have noidea. She actually calls what they do online - the typing, thefile-sharing and the voice conversations they have - a'relationship.' It's never made any sense to me! I always believedthat she'd return to her senses as soon as she met a suitable guyhere in Kuwait. "I can't do this to Jesse," she'd say. Or I'd see
her with groggy eyes and she'd say "I had a fight with Jesse lastnight." That drove me mad. How is it possible to have a fight witha person in a different continent on the computer? "I almostsmashed the keyboard typing," she said, trying to explain how angryshe felt.

Online stores:

Here's a question to all shopaholics - and I know they'reinnumerable here in Kuwait. How can you shop online? How do youtrust the delivery people to pick the right piece for you? Mysister is obsessed with shopping, but the wrong kind of shopping.She shops on Amazon and gets things delivered to her US inbox, thenwaits for them to be delivered to Kuwait. Where's the fun in that?I thought the point of buying a purse or a pair of shoes was toimmediately put them on as soon as you get home and start sash
aying around the house to show everyone how perfectly the shoes fityour feet.

The most successful online business here is food delivery, whichseriously kills the joy of eating. My colleague and I are addictedto it, ordering food every single day. We've tried every singlecuisine that delivers to our office so far, and only recently haveI discovered the evils of food home-delivery. Eating sushi, forexample, should not be done in front of your computer screen. Itjust kills the thrill of eating sushi. A restaurant is supposed tooffer you your food in the right proper atmosphere.
Having sushi in your office is just wrong. It's like skiing in thedesert.

Through the Internet you can also have your groceries delivered toyour house. Is that normal? My mother is the kind of person whoisn't satisfied if she doesn't pick her own fruit and vegetablesfrom the market. She trusts me to buy everything from the grocerystore, except the fruit and veggies. I suggested having themdelivered once because I was too lazy to drive her. I argued thatshe should take advantage of such services. Technology is cool, Iexplained, and I was not in the mood to move away from m
y laptop (oh, wicked Internet). My mother ended up taking a taxi.Which is just fine. There must be a way to order a cab through theInternet. No? Maybe it will happen soon, then.

Blogging and blogging 'accessories':

Blogging can be another way to let the world know about thesmallest details of your life. What you did in your day (if youblog about your daily life events, that is), your friends, yourfuture plans and things to blog, tags - there are even pictures ofbloggers' bedrooms and 101-things-about-me lists (or is it 1001?),as well as many other revealing secrets. Some girls in my classcall each other by their blog nicknames. How scary is that? "Didyou go to Nu's birthday?" one of them asked me. "That's not
her real name!" I wanted to scream.

There are also lists of the countries you have been to, lists ofthe places you want to go to and the books you've read, as well asyour favorite movies and music. And they have started to replaceactual talking. I once asked one of my friends about the reason whyshe was upset. "Did you read my blog?" she said, after a long'shame-on-you-how-dare-you-ask' sigh.

The amount of information disclosed in a person's blog isabsolutely vast and, more than often, very revealing. It's actuallyrather revealing, making a perfect place to start if you want tostalk a person. Not any person, though; it has to be a person whoblogs intimately about their personal life. Which forms quite a lotof the total of Kuwaiti blogs.

hussain@kuwaittimes.net