In our fast digital age, how often do we take the time to write a letter by hand, send a gift (self-picked and self-packed), or even walk over to a friend’s house? Many time-taking social rituals have become near extinct, as our digital, virtual, and electronic lives rush into the future.

Well, the other day, I had the true pleasure of receiving a REAL package from my loving grandmother in Europe. She is from a time when people took effort to perform simple(now) tasks in their daily lives, and when everything was done by hand. No generic envelopes or force-fed commercial packing. Here is a picture of her package:

And inside:

And inside that? Well, you know, some german toothpaste I asked for (for my birthday), plus some typical german chocolate (Milka - you can’t get it here, really), plus some other little things, all neatly packed tight - you could tell she put thought into the whole thing.

You should have seen my face walking out with it at the post office: gleaming. I felt so special! Also, you should have seen all the passersby eyeing my box - they knew it was a unique treat you don’t see too often nowadays.

Previously, I discussed how we are being monitored digitally in our bedrooms as much as on the world wide web, in order for companies to ‘better target ads’ to us, their customers. Since then, there have been a few events that add to my pessimism regarding internet services (i.e. search engines), directing me to believe that they are seriously invading our privacy, or are on route to do so.

• Yahoo allegedly hands over information to Chinese authorities about an author of some politically-charged internet writings. He was subsequently charged and jailed (and tortured, probably). The Chinese couple is currently suing Yahoo.
• Google rats out YouTube TV-show uploader, who brazenly offered never-before-aired episodes of a major television show. Now Google offers a new copyright-protection tool called “Claim Your Content” for companies to easily report piracy on YouTube.
• Google is trying to weezle its way into television ads & radio advertisements as well.
• Google will soon offer GDrive, to let people backup their entire hard drives, etc, for free. It’s not enough that they control millions of people’s email, internet searches, calendars, etc, but now all their personal files as well?
• WebOS is becoming more and more of a viable future way of working on the computer. With web applications popping up every day and the world wide web becoming increasingly accessible to all, it is only a matter of time before all our computer work will be actually executed online.

Now of course, there are good things and bad things which come out of these developments. One good thing is that we will be digitally and globally connected, able to access (and work on) all our files and documents from anywhere in the world. Of course, this comes at a price: privacy. Each and every single move we make in the digital world will be logged, somewhere. And internet companies will continue to cave in to big conglomerates for fear of lawsuits (ex/piracy case vs. Youtube) as well as governments for fear of being shut out of a huge market (ex/Chinese case). Other companies will be able to target ads to us (I personally don’t like this idea, some might think it’s good), and governments all over the world will be able to get any information they want about anybody. Does that really protect us? If it does, then that protection comes at another price: freedom of speech. Just look what happened to the Chinese writer.

It is news to no one, not even me, that eroticism in popular culture is a 24-hour, all-you-can-eat buffet, and that many children in their early teens are filling up. The latest debate centers on whether simulated intercourse is an appropriate dance style for the high school gym.

This is just amazing to me. It makes me scared to think how I will ever be able to raise decent kids(in the future) with so much negative pressure from society, which teaches ’sex sells’ at such an early age. I am also not surprised that in other parts of the world, Islam, even with the hard-core fundamentalists, gets stronger day by day. Although in many ways a very harsh alternative where the female gets no choice in the matter, women are viewed as valuable parts of society who need to be protected and not exposed.

I will note, however, that it is not always the men, but the women themselves who believe they need to ’strut their stuff’ for attention. Is that really the only way? Whatever happened to class, mystery, confidence, self-respect, and intelligence? I hope that we Western women find a better solution, one that allows us freedom without overexposure, so that we never have to witness a backlash or cultural revolution (like in the Middle East) that takes us backwards in time.

Well we’ve all heard about myspace (and other “friend”-linking sites, such as Friendster, Facebook, etc), and how it can e-link you to your friends (if you’re a teenager or sub-25? or whatever) or to your prospective fans (if you’re a start-up band) or help you find a date? I don’t know. About a year ago, a friend of mine urged me to sign up, since “it would be good to market my designs”. Even though I spent hours trying to hook my myspace up, as well as others’, and even set up a salsa group on myspace, I cannot say I like it or use it. I barely log onto it anymore, and frankly I’m just sick of it. Why, might you ask?

Let me tell you a story. Well really it’s an eavesdropping. I, on my way back from work on the train, overheard this LOUD conversation behind me between 2 young guys, maybe 19 or 20. Between their “likes” and “dudes”, I did find their conversation very interesting, especially when it turned to myspace. Basically the 2 guys were VERY upset(talking loudly like they didn’t care at all) about how young girls are acting nowadays, complaining that even the ‘good’ girls from nice families have become extremely trashy lately. One guy even used the words “FILTHY” and “DISGUSTING” he was so upset, especially since his younger sister seems to be acting a certain way because of her friends. Finally 1 of the guys said his hypothesis: it’s all because of myspace. And they went on & on about it.

Back to what I think - I agree! But besides complaining about the endless girls on myspace showing their asses or their boobs instead of their faces as their default picture, I never said much about it, since I just wrote it off as being a ‘younger generation’ type thing. But now that I hear other teenage boys upset about the raunchiness of their own sisters and girlfriends, I am quite alarmed. Has our society gone too far, with the older women barbie’ing themselves up with plastic surgery, while our younger women get caught up in marketing their own flesh in cyber-space? Have we all turned into wanna-be Lara Crofts, made by men, molded by men, played by men???