Online all the time: Youth & New Media. The impact of social networking and the online world on Indonesian culture

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It was raining last weekend and a friend of mine felt totally disappointed canceling her picnic plan with her girlfriends, and she wanted everybody know about it so she posted her sad feeling on Twitter and waited for a couple of minutes to see if anybody tweeted her back with a response. Rain stopped sometime later but she already engaged on her laptop and forgetting her plan.

I went to a party last night and snapped a lot of pictures and the only thing that lingers in my mind since last night is “I could not wait to upload them all to Facebook and tag everybody in it!” I even curious to see other pictures my friends will upload and see if anybody tagged me.

All those experiences above is no longer new to young people in Indonesia, especially those who fortunate enough to have that super-cool-I-can-be-online-anytime-anywhere gadget. Honestly I even cannot remember how do we live before Facebook or Twitter. Cyber world has gained tremendous development over the years and I feel both proud and concerned about it.

Online world sure bring a lot of positive impacts for young people. The latest hot site for young people is Indonesian Unite, which was born as a result for our fight over bombing action some time ago. In such a short time Indonesian Unite successfully gain a lot of supports from Indonesian people, both youth and adult people. I personally feel very proud for this because it shows how many people still care for this country.
On the other hand, youth’s addiction over the online world can be very negative if only they could not control it. Remember how many hours had you spend outside doing real world action five years ago and compare them with today.I am (and majority of other college students are) constantly losing my important sleeping hours doing nothing important in front of my notebook.It is no longer a secret that young people spend their time mostly on Internet, no wonder everything is now so Facebook and Twitter worthy. I secretly afraid that our cultures will slowly vanish as the Internet is rapidly growing.
Or maybe that is just my imagination.
Maybe I should post it on Twitter.
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P.S. I wrote this to participate in Indonesian Youth Conference Blog Competition. My writing's a bit sucked maybe,considering i wrote it at 2.30 am,but anyhow pray for me