Blackberry in Indonesia

In Indonesia, blackberry is extremely popular.  What started as a device for work is now a social tool.  I first noticed every mom in my kids' school fiddling with their blackberry during school performance.   These ladies can't wait to flip out their latest blackberry with the fanciest cover.  Then my 11 year-old insisted in having one 'cos all her friends have one.   The sign that it has infiltrated our society is when my driver wanted to borrow money to buy one.  

Indonesians are very sociable.  We love to chat.  The telecom operators are laughing their way to the bank with the amount of sms that we sent as a nation.  And now blackberry or "bb" as it is called, has become the pinnacle of communication.  First, it is cheaper than sending sms.  It has the added benefit of keeping track of the chat, having conference chat and now the ever popular chat groups.  It is easy to send pics through bb, so easy that my male friend of mine who's married accidentally sent me pics of a scantily dressed woman.  And of cos, it allows access to facebook which is another new addiction of our nation.

I have no issues with people updating their status every split second on FB and displaying their raw emotions to their "friends".  I actually think it is healthy to to express your emotions.  FB status range from "I'm so happy", "I've been dumped" to inspirational quotes, traffic updates, restaurant reviews and practically anything we feel like saying or asking.   It's the misuse of bb that annoy me.  People send spam messages on bb and bb chat groups.  I now have to keep my bb messanger profile silent to keep my sanity.

Bb should be used for sharing useful and important information.  Send your jokes directly to the person who enjoy them (you'll know who they are as they are the ones who respond with"hahaha") instead of blasting to everyone.  And not everyone wants a dose of your inspirational quote daily.  Please arrange your golf game directly with the few persons who are going (use the conference feature) instead of blasting to the 20 people in the group.

Twitter has not really caught on in Indonesia yet.  It is still popular only among the teenagers.  I encourage my friends to please get on Twitter if FB is not ample to ease your crave for networking.    With Twitter, you can then share your thoughts, joke, and anything you feel like sharing.  It is accessible on bb.  And yes, I'll look at your Twitter update when I feel like it.   But please don't clog my bb.