A good lesson to learn from Tammy

Categories: Wormie Says

The current furore on the self-filmed sex video of Tammy of NYP is indeed regretable. I will not dwelve on the ethics or the legal aspects. These had probably been extensively debated in coffeeshop, blogs, newspapers, etc. What I would like to touch on involve the 'danger' of modern technology.

With current technology, taking digital stills and video is too convenient. All you need to do is to have a fairly cheap phone and you will get both. Gone are the days when you have to fork out thousands of dollars just to get a decent video camera. With such ease anyone can just use the handphone which is now ubiquitous and just click and viola! he or she had just become a director and producer! With such ease it is little wonder that people nowadays, seem to be trigger happy. The take anything that they can think of and anything that may interest them. Digital technology does not only provide easier capturing of events, it is also 'free' to keep the stills or video. They do not have to be developed to be seen unlike the old film technology. Once taken, the pictures and stills can be seen instantaneously and if you don't like it, just delete it off. All this for free!

Together with the convenience of digital stills and video we also are in the age of sharing. Sharing our experience, our photo collections, journeys in life and much more. Problem is we are not only sharing with people we know, but we share with people we do not even know exist! Of course what I am talking about is the Internet. We have the ubiquitous blogs, forwarding of emails, newsgroups and so on. All this make sharing too simple.

Coupled with the above, is the fact that people of today like to 'show off'. By show off, I mean they like to tell people what they are doing, what their thoughts are and how they feel (like myself!), or being kaypoh if you like. Gone are the days when people will keep their opinion to themselves or write down their feelings in their diaries. Now diaries in the form of blogs are no longer personal. They are there for the whole world to see. This has to do with the anonymity that the Internet provides to a certain extent.

Adding all these there things together, you will see that how it is so easy to abuse the new found technology. You take a photo, upload to your blog and the whole world will know! Because of these, young people especially need to be aware of the pitfalls in the new technology.

If you want to keep a secret, do not tell anyone! Sounds obvious enough.

If you want to keep you personal photos to yourself, do not leave it in the phone. With bluetooth or infrared technology, it is so simple to beam to another phone and had the photos uploaded. Phones can also be easily stolen like what happened in the NYP case.

Try to abstain from taking photos that you may regret at a later date. Example will be your nude photos and videos which you would like your boyfriend to have. This is because, there is always a chance that your boyfriend may ditch you and then show his 'prize catch' to the whole world. Some guys may even show off their 'beautiful bounty' to his friends in a bid to be one upmanship.

The Tammy's case is a perfect example of what 'good' intentions can go wrong. Unfortunately this will not be the last case we will see. Therefore if it something private, then only capture it in your mind. This way, anything private will stay private!