Constant Surveillance

The thing about cameras and photography that is disturbing is their increasing sophistication and their cybernetic feedback mechanisms. The techniques of monotoring people through the use of cameras has caused the world to be surrounded by constant surveillance issues. Although it is helpful in capturing baddies, it has become more popular to capture the happenings of the lives of celebrities.

The observation of celebrities has become enormously favoured in today's pop culture. Paparazzi are constantly bombarding the lives of those famous people of Hollywood and Bollywood to get some form of compensation, and people are supporting this idea. It is more likely for someone to go buy the latest issue of 'Heat' or a celebrity gossip magazine than to attend a play, for instance.

The lives of celebrities are important in the majority of our lives. Some thrive on seeing the latest celebrity gossip and the shocking pictures of their notorious actions. It is sad to think how involved people have become in the lives of others, simply through pictures. It cannot be a good feeling having strangers seeing what you are doing, or how you look when you go to the shop. Cameras, in this sense, portray the lives of others simply for the reason of gaining money.

Taryn Brown

Mobile Recycling??

Have you ever wondered what happens to all of your old and outdated cell phones when you get a new one roughly every 2 years?

Our family puts our old and malfunctional ones in our Wendy House for our little cousins to play with - because it seems that all children love phones!

I found a statistic for America...130 million cell phones are replaced annually... thats 130 million phones that have to go somewhere. I know we dont all just throw our old phones away as soon as we get a new one, but nevertheless, they will be kept in drawers until they become totally obsolete and disposed of at a later date. According to a study, that means 65,000 tons of trash!

As technology advances at exponential rates, rendering current technology obsolete, our society stives after acquiring the latest thing - in this case in the form of the most up to date cell phone model - and more waste is being created.

According to Dave Bell, "cell phones contain persistent and bio-accumulative toxic chemicals (PBTs) that are linked to cancer and a host of neurological, reproductive, and developmental disorders. Their components include: arsenic, antimony, beryllium, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, and zinc; along with the brominated flame retardant used in the plastic parts."
Scary stuff! When we throw cell phones into the bins, they eventually end up contaminating our soil and water, and ultimately our planet.

We are a consumerist, wasteful world. Currently, less than 10% of phones are recycled, but there are initiatives that are coming into being in order to solve the problem.
In England I recycled one of my old phones. Envelopes are provided in puiblic places like libraries or post offices, and you can put your old phone into one, and post it off for free. This also helps the organisartion that sets up the scheme (maybe an animal anti-cruelty society), to raise money.
In February of this year, California implemented a compulsory cell phone recycling scheme where cellphone retailers are now required to establish a collection and recycling program.

Australia has implemented a nationwide cellphone recycling program and the European Union is considering a move to make manufacturers responsible for electronic product wastes.

Virgin mobile in the USA has become the first carrier to include a postage paid recycling envelope in the box with every phone it sells.

Reuse is the most common form of recycling, so when you send your phone to Virgin Mobile for recycling they first attempt to refurbish it and give it to a new Virgin Mobile customer. Or, they'll send it on to people who are in need of a mobile phone, at a reduced price. If they can't re-use or re-furbish the phone you send in, then they'll recycle it in an environmentally correct way.

I have seen adverts in South African newspapers placed by buyers of old and used cellphones, but I have yet to find a country-wide campaign or organisation that promotes cell phone recycling. Lets hope it comes about soon.

Jargon, connectedness, etc...

A journalist wrote the other day…
“With the spread of the internet on the phone, geographical boundaries are becoming less important, and the context of relationships and how people connect is changing.”

Haven’t cell phones in general changed the way in which we relate to each other? Why has the introduction of being able to use the internet on our phones, changed the context of relationships?
Perhaps it is because we can now communicate extremely cheaply due to the minimal rates that service providers charge for going online. I’m sure this is not in the best financial interests of any of the service providers, as their customers choose to go online as opposed to sms-ing or phoning.
The reason why MXIT has been such a success is because it costs virtually nothing, so people spend all day on it, and write to people that they wouldn’t usually, if they had to pay. People’s behavior changes when there’s money involved, and when offered something for nothing, will usually take full advantage of it.

Another social network, mig33, has come onto the scene, offering multiple services such as VoIP calls, e-mail, instant messaging, chat rooms, sms-ing, and photo sharing.

I’ve been hearing about VoIP for a while now but have never known what it is. I’ve learnt that it stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. It refers to the transmission of ones voice using a normal internet connection. Thus VoIP can turn any desktop or laptop connected to the Internet into a telephone, and cell phones are also now able to use it because they have access to the internet in the form of WAP. (What is WAP?...WAP stands for Wirelss Application Protocol and is a standard term for applications that use wireless communication. It is mainly used to enable access to the internet from a mobile phone. – thanks Wikipedia!)

Back to VoIP…its biggest advantage is cost savings, as the calls are free whether you are phoning a local, long distance, or cell phone number. One just has to pay a flat fee to the VoIP service provider (Telkom even provides it…if you are patient enough to use them!)
Will this technology spell the end of landline phones?!
We are becoming more and more reliant on the internet. In fact one could say we are a society somewhat addicted to our computer screens and the technology that surrounds and connects us.

So yes, people are becoming more connected, not in a bodily sense, but rather in a disconnected manner which spans across time and space.

I lv u stx...l8r x

There must be millions of couples whose romances began in the world of digital technology... mainly over sms.

I think it is an unhealthy place to start a romantic attachment. People, guys in particular, are losing the art of decent 'courtship' and how to woo a women in person. Instead, they use shortened words and symbols (xxx) to express their feelings, and ask questions that they wouldn't dare have the boldness or cheek to in a face to face encounter with their hearts desire.

Guys ask girls out over sms, girls and guys dump each other over sms.... cellphones are making us into a generation of non-confrontational cowards.

Having a long distance relationship myself, I am most grateful for sms techbology, but my case is different because I've known him for 4 years, and we aren't trying to get to know each other through 9 keys and a cellphone screen.

Besides the time wastage of sending short messages back and forth for hours at a time, text messages can be misread, over-anaylsed, lost in space and never replied to....

The worst is when you send a gushy sms to the wrong person... we have all done that - some with more disastrous consequences than others!

It is a sad day when two people that like each other would rather spend 4 hours sending smses back and forth between each other, rather than meet up for a one hour coffee...where the quality of conversation will be far better, but definately less bold.

Throught smsing, cellphones are changing the way relationships are developed. Social norms are being transformed and shaken about. For example, it is very rare that a guy will ask a girl outright if she likes anyone...but it happens all the time over sms!

My suggestion... pick up your phone and instead of using it to sms "I lv u xxxxx", rather phone your object of affection, organise a date, and tell them in person with a hug and a real kiss...

Cara Booysen

Ripped off Saffas

Pay as you go cellphone clients in South Africa get a raw deal compared to contract holders.

Sms's aren't exactly cheap in peak times and phoning costs an absolute fortune. These high costs come with no added benefits or perks... just the constant purchasing of recharge vouchers!

In England I was a pay-as-you-go customer of the network, O2. Wow do they treat you well there. All I had to do was top up by 10 pounds a month, and I got 300 free 'sms's (or 'texts' as they call them there)

If I then topped up by another 5 pounds within that month, I got 300 free off peak minutes as well!
I was free to use my 15 quid of credit to send international sms's.

Thats another area where we are ripped off here. A local sms in England costs 10pence (the equivalent of about R1.60, which may sound expensive because of the high exchange rate, but in terms of earning power, its very cheap!) and an international one costs double a local one.


Here an international sms costs 4 times that of a local one!

Cell C, MTN, Vodacom and Virgin... stop ripping off the people who are too poor to afford a contract!

(P.S - In England, South Africans are called, and call themselves "Saffas")

Cara Booysen

It's amazing..

Just the other night i was watching the news and a man had recorded an incident of a funfair ride falling down on his cell phone. It is truly amazing how the development of photography, as well as all other technologies, has expanded throughout the years. He was the only individual who had captured it, and it was through the use of his cell phone. Who would have thought a couple of years ago that we could one day have cell phones that by simply pushing a button could capture images and videos of things or people around us? When I was younger the only form of a camera I knew were those huge, now very outdated, cameras that you had to basically hold with both hands because it was so big and heavy.. Nowdays you can pop down to your local store and purchase one that is the size of your palm, or get a camera phone that can do just the same thing.

Photography has been incorporated into our everyday lives through the creation of camera phones, and by not having a cell with these aspects it is just simply "not cool." It is ludacris when we come to think of how we lived in the past and how we live now. How did our grandparents manage without cell phones in the past is beyond me, and as i see it this is just the beginning of what is to come in the future, in terms of photographic technology.

Taryn Brown

Plugged and unplugged

I have never seen as much mud as I saw this Easter weekend at Splashy Fen. But porridge-like mud and somewhat unsavoury ablutions could not discourage the torrent of music lovers that slid into the music festival. I have always thought of myself as something of a prude when it comes to the types of music that are available to our ears these days. I don’t like screaming, I don’t like wailing, I don’t like musical folk tales, I don’t like panpipes… or so I thought, until this weekend. There is something about watching a musician in action that is quite mesmerising. You find yourself involuntarily tapping your foot, and after a few shots of sherry you start to bob your head, and then before you know it you’re “full-on jamming bru” (quote by red-eyed, male matriculant) without a care that someone might be pointing and laughing at you because everyone seems to be doing the same thing. It got to the point where I was jumping and flailing about furiously to a heavy metal Christian band. Clearly my previously plugged, conservative ears had been unplugged and to my amazement I found myself, and many others like myself, opening up to all things musical. Heavy metal gospel, pop folksong, electronic jazz, and pop punk bombarded me in true post-modern speed and multiplicity. I came away from splashy feeling alive, and eager to keep refilling this feeling by supporting as many musicians as humanly possible. So I returned to Pietermaritzburg bespeckled with mud, reeking of smoke, desperate for the loo and quite broke. Was it worth it? Definitely.