Catfish: More than just a delicacy today

Credits: MTV

Everything we do on the Internet today puts us at risk of cybercrimes and other dangers. One of the most rampant types of cybercrime is, of course, catfishing. Urban Dictionary defines catfish as "someone who pretends to be someone they're not using Facebook or other social media to create false identities, particularly to pursue deceptive online romances". With the advent of the Internet, users have been more susceptible to deception and fraud than ever. Catfishing has been so rampant over the recent years that it has spawned many click-bait lists such as this BuzzFeed list of "17 of the Most Insane Catfish Stories That Will Make You Cringe", among many.

Cases of high-profile celebrities such as Manti Te'o', a NFL linebacker, have splashed the covers of tabloid magazines, speaking about the terrors of being a catfish victim. When the film, Catfish, was released in 2010, the producers of the film received so many e-mails from the public about their personal encounters with catfishing that MTV decided to produce a television show chronicling the lives of victims as they track the perpetrators down with the help of Nev Schulman and Max Joseph. Catfish the movie was, in fact, a real-life story of how Nev was catfished by a woman named Abby, who was eventually discovered to be a fraud. 

In serious cases, the perpetrators of this crime resort to extorting money from their victims. In Malaysia, cases of Africans using false identities to extort money from unwitting women are not foreign to us anymore. Malaysia currently ranks at sixth place globally in terms of cyber crime threat risks, and this figure is expected to climb over the next few years. 2,960 cases of fraud have been recorded by My Computer Response Team (MyCERT) in their Incident Statistics Report in 2015.

Some of these cases involve blackmail; first involving coercing victims into indecent acts, and then recording these acts, then threatening to release those photos online if the victims do not pay a certain sum of money. Sometimes, victims are also persuaded to send money over to these perpetrators after they are sweet talked; where perpetrators whisper sweet nothings to them, and then suddenly encountering "family and/or problems" that require urgent wire transfers.

These victims are commonly divorced, single or widowed women who are looking for partners. These perpetrators are usually Africans who use photographs of Caucasian men as a ruse to hide their identities. The Star Online reports that as a result, RM1 billion have been lost to these scammers alone. 

What do you think can be done to curb this problem? Sound off in the comments below.

References

Arief Irsyad. (2015, December 8). Malaysia is becoming a global hub for online scams, will you be the next victim? Malaysian Digest. Retrieved from http://malaysiandigest.com

Brady, E., & George, R. (2013, January 18). Manti Te'o's "catfish" story is a common one. USA Today. http://usatoday.com

Camoens, A. (2016, March 26). RM1bil lost to online scammers. Retrieved from http://thestaronline.com.my

Campbell, C. (2014, July 9). Malaysia is becoming a global hub for internet scams preying on the lovelorn. Time Magazine. Retrieved from http://time.com

Catfish (n.d.) In Urban Dictionary. Retrieved from http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=catfish

Written by

Natalie Ha Siaw Ching (42623)

Alpha child, new identity?

Back to those years (Gen Z or earlier than that), when you’re still a child, what kind of attire did your parents dress you up in? What kind of hair style did you have at that time? What kind of products did your parents choose for you, did you dye your hair? Wax it?

If you are an individual born between 1990- 1999, you’re most likely sad because you’re no longer “young” anymore! The term, “young” here doesn’t mean that you’re old, it projected there are more new born babies coming. And, the cruelest fact is – the 90s babies are no longer babies anymore, so who is the baby now?

Ouch, that is really a true fact that we (those who come from Gen X or earlier) are really outdated compared to the Gen Alpha – those child who born in 2010 (Holroyd, 2011). So what makes them different from us?

So what are the differences between children who are born in Gen X and Gen Alpha? Let’s have a look at the pictures below.

1. Gen X did not have any social media accounts. Even if we do have them, we are not as popular as people like Jacob who is only 3 years old but already has 52.7k followers. Plus, we don’t have social media like Instagram at that time. 

 

   2. Gen X did not dress up stylish a la K-pop. We, Gen X, only experienced “bowl haircut” or buzz cuts, but Gen Alpha experienced stylish undercuts just like Brad Pitt’s fury haircut. Plus, some of them even perm their hair when they are still a baby! 

3. Our parents, most of them are just ordinary typical parents who are working and who take care of us. But, parents of Gen Alpha especially mothers invest much effort and time into their children. They are housewives but are also “managers” and “spoke persons” for their children. Their parents also manage their social media accounts, of course. Some of the children like Jacob (as shown in picture below) are considered some of the most popular figures in Malaysia. In one particular case, he even appeared as ae model for advertising purposes or photoshoots. In addition, there is news coverage for this stylish baby boy as well. 

 

     

A few questions to ponder upon are; what is the identity for children nowadays? Are they just normal kids enjoying their childhood? A fashion icon? Or a potential artist? 

As shown in the pictures above, we are able to see that Alpha children have several identities. Firstly, they are still normal children enjoying their childhood but just they enjoy themselves in different, more luxurious ways compared to Gen X. Technology and digital gadgets are no longer novelties for them. They are no longer bounded with the television schedule to watch cartoons. This is because they watch cartoon through YouTube nowadays! Unfortunately, we watched cartoon either scheduled from television programme, CD/DVD or even tape casettes. In addition, most of them aged below 4 years old are already keen to use digital devices like iPad and iPhone to watch cartoons or play games. 

Next, Alpha children are fashion icons as well. They have a keen sense of fashion and they even requested to choose what to wear on their own. Compared to us born before Gen Alpha, we usually wear what our parents select for us. But, today, the trend has started to change. Alpha children appear different significantly compared to Gen Z. In consonance with the trend, there are many retail shops especially retail stores that have started to invest into children’s attire such as Cotton On, Burberry, H&M, Uniqlo and so forth. Nowadays, we are able to find children’s departments easily when you walk in into any retail store. Regardless of parent’s influence, this variety has helped shape the Alpha child’s fashion sense indirectly.

Apart from that, some of them have high potentials to become artists in the coming future. They are experts in posing and even have experienced working with production teams; for instance magazine shooting, advertising, television reality show and so on. Even though they doing the “job” with their parents’ supervision, this indicated that Alpha children have high confidence level compared to the others. Some of them are even experts in the art of taking selfies where they know how to focus on an object, use a camera and sometimes even help their mother take photos.

Undeniably, this generation’s children are very different from children of previous generations. As a matter of fact, with the advancement of technology and development of society, children started having multiple identities in their daily lives; as a normal child, as a fashion icon, and as a potential artist. Somehow, aesthetic seems to be placed importantly in their lives even though they are still young. Does such development benefit Alpha children? In my opinion, it largely depends on how an individual judges the variety identities belonging to a child.   

Reference

Holroyd, J. (2011, July 20). Talkin’ bout my label. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/

By Ng Mei Chee (42680)

Are we getting lazy?

Technology as we know it has changed the way we communicate, the way we learn, the way businesses are run, the way we have fun, etc. Technology has made life convenient and easy, to say the least. The little device in our hands has become so essential in our lives that it scares us to think of what might happen if it was taken from us. 

There was once a time where we would go out and make friends in the park or in a café; nowadays we don’t even need to get out of bed to make friends - Facebook has simplified the whole process for us. Keeping in touch with our family members are just a video call or email away which will be sent to them almost instantaneously. We are no longer bound to face to face interactions and long distance calls which involve time zones and waiting hours.

Shopping and paying bills have also gone online. Gone were the days where we would drive to a shopping mall and try on the best t-shirt to buy because now buying the best t-shirt is only a click away and it’ll be delivered to your door step in a matter of days. Paying your bills are also a click away with a 3 step verification system. Apps such as Waze and Google Maps have made it impossible for us to get lost which does not require us to remember how to get to our friend’s house any more.

Technology has also created a world of entertainment which does not require us to leave the house at all and occupy our time. We are now able to play games on our mobile phones and laptop with people from across the globe, we are able to watch movies from Youtube or Iflix as well as exercise at home using the Wii.

Search engines such as Google and Yahoo helps us find the answers to almost everything such as on how to boil an egg or how much is 2 times 4. It has also made the process of learning easy and convenient, just quick searches on Google and you have all the answers you need – no need to ask your mother. This also applies for students; books are practically useless because the Internet has it all.

It is clear that technology does a have an effect on the way we do things. A lot of times people take the easy way out because they can. It has also brought up the fact that it may not just be making peoples’ actions lazy, but that it could be making their brains lazy as well. It has been a concern that not only has technology made people lazy, but that it has also made our brains lazy. According to Medhurst, González & Peterson (1990), “The answer is clear: digital technology does change the way your brain works.” Because everything is done so efficiently, our brains are only taking in the information we need. It used to be that we took in everything because we needed to do more work to learn what we needed to learn. 

So, are you lazy?

Medhurst, M., González, A., & Peterson, T. (1990). Communication & the culture of technology. Pullman, Wash.: Washington State University Press.

Posted by Katrina B Quiroz, 44832

When Traditional Journalism Meets Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism can be defined as a concept where readers, viewers and listeners are actively participating in the process of collecting, choosing, analysing and disseminating news and information (Rosen, 2008). It is a type of journalism where audience become the journalists. In today’s world, social media is heavily used by citizens as a tool for journalism. John Hartley observed this phenomenon as a shift in the way people use media to communicate anything from news to daily ongoing and own experiences (Flew as cited in Adams, 2006). Traditional journalism has been heading downhill because the audience is slowly shifting away from traditional news, such as newspapers (Adams, 2006).

On the other hand, the development in technology is clearly seen by the huge amount of internet communication technology users. In this form of communication, the users are also the producers of the content from the internet. This dynamic relationship shows how the audience needs and their media use is intertwined. In response to these technological changes, Murdoch (2005) stated that mainstream media have developed online news sites where audiences are offered various levels of participatory access to the news process.  There are many arguments that both support and contradict the emergence of online news sites.

Normal people use mobile phone dissemination and blogging to communicate plenty of current issues live across the world. The citizen generated contents are sometimes even used by the new organisations to add depth to their stories. Although citizen journalism is getting popular nowadays, traditional journalism, however is still going strong and it is still used to report about events happening worldwide every day as the messages conveyed are reliable and more up to date while citizen generated content have been known to be mislead the public. However, traditional journalism seems to be facing a very tough time at the moment due to the heavy usage of social media as a mean of disseminating news. People do not feel the need to buy newspapers anymore as the internet has it all. They can access the online news freely, anytime and anywhere. They can easily find out whatever that is going on in the world through these sources because all types of information about current news and events are easily accessible. Even journalists these days are using social networking sites to provide news updates.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that journalism has entered a new era of technology and it is modernizing our communication habits. To keep up with the zeitgeist, traditional journalism needs to strive to keep up to date with the trend with a focus to stay strong. Both citizen journalism and traditional journalism are two very different types of journalism. The fine line between both journalism is very obvious to the public. However it is good that the two are merging together to create a deeper meaning and truth to news stories. Hopefully the merging of the two will adopt aspects such as news and pictures from each other in order to make news stories more in depth and credible.

References:
Adams, D. A. (2006). Journalism, citizens and blogging.
Murdoch, R. (2005). Speech by Rupert Murdoch to the American Society of Newspaper Editors. American Society of Newspaper Editors. Retrieved from  http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_247.html
Rosen, J. (2008) A Most Useful Definition of Citizen Journalism.




By Chew Zhu Ne (40854)

Using Social Media To Develop And Maintain Relationships Among UNIMAS Students

As social scientists, our objectives are to understand our friend’s digital behavior pattern and to identify the purpose of social media usage among them. Therefore, we have developed a set of questionnaire on the topic: Use of social media in the development and maintenance of relationships among youths in UNIMAS, for the purpose of investigating about their digital habit.

According to the data that we had collected from a total of 81 respondents that were sampled in UNIMAS, 72 (88.9%) of them answered that they use some form of social media, whereas the remaining 9 (11.1%) respondents do not. This vast difference in responses parallel that of a recent study conducted by the Malaysian Commission of Multimedia and Communication (MCMC) quoting that 64% of the Malaysian population have “social media penetration”, which means that they use some form of social media regularly (Mustafa, 2015).

We, the social scientists, are interested to find out the digital behavior among youths in UNIMAS, especially how do people use social media in the development and maintenance of relationships in their daily lives. Therefore, those who said that they do not own social media accounts were not accounted for in this study. Those who do own social media accounts are the main focus of this study, and out of these 72 respondents, they were also asked about the type of social media they use daily.

In order to investigate more about their digital behavior, the respondents were also asked about the social media accounts they update more often than others. They were asked to choose from a list of 10 most common social media sites used by youths today, but there was also an “others” option for respondents in case there are other forms of social media sites that they may use. The results showed that the most frequently used and updated social networking site is Facebook, which also echoes the findings of the study conducted by MCMC. According to that same study, 15.6 million Malaysians are active on Facebook. However, there is a difference between the type of social media used and the ones respondents update the most because social chatting applications like WhatsApp, although commonly used, provide limited room for updates, except via “statuses” which are not as visible to others as they may be on other platforms such as WeChat, which utilises a “Moments” feature similar to that of updating one’s Facebook status.

It was one of the objectives of this study to identify the purpose of social media usage among the respondents. We used a Likert scale in question 13 of the questionnaire and asked the respondents to rank the purposes of social media usage. However, in this discussion, we only decided to select 6 out of the 15 purposes initially provided that was most closely related to the development and maintenance of relationships.

The findings show that e-mail is considered important, but it is not “very important”, neither is it something they cannot live without to the majority of youths. On the other hand, most respondents felt that instant messaging was ranked of higher importance than other purposes, such as e-mail or playing games, with 40.3% saying that they “cannot live without it” and 54.2% saying it is “very important”. It is evident that instant messaging is a more popular method of communication among youths, and it is most likely to be because of the instantaneous responses that can be obtained, and its easy access as opposed to e-mails. Although it is not a priority, the majority of respondents (43.0%) also feel that being part of online communities is important to them. This echoes the Uses and Gratifications Theory that states that people use the media for social integrative needs, to feel included and to forge friendships and companionships. Playing games was also included in this discussion because many games nowadays encompass gaming communities, where players can communicate with other players all around the world. The ranking of importance was balanced between “very important” (27.8%), “important” (29.2%) and “not important at all” (27.8%). This is probably because gaming is not a common past time, and among those who frequently play games, being part of these communities and chat rooms is important, but not something they cannot live without.

The respondents who said they use some form of social media were also asked if they prefer communicating via social media or face-to-face (interpersonal) communication in question 14. The findings show that respondents generally prefer face-to-face communication (51.4%) over communication via social media (48.6%), although only by a narrow margin. The respondents were then asked to choose between a set of reasons for the answers they had provided in question 14, and multiple responses were also allowed.

From the result obtained, it is evident that those who prefer communication via social media use social media as a tool of convenience because it saves time (26 responses), cost (26 responses, and bridges geographical barriers (24 responses) that might separate their friends and family from them. Some also find that social media can veil embarrassment (21 responses). We asked some of them why they felt that social media can prevent embarrassment, and they responded by saying that communication via social media gives them time to formulate their thoughts and opinions before penning them down into words, thus reduces the chances of embarrassment.

Those who prefer face-to-face communication generally feel so because it is easier for them to express their true feelings (29 responses). They also find that it is easier for them to express their opinions and thoughts (20 responses) via face-to-face communication, and at the same time, they are able to see other people’s facial expressions (25 responses) and gauge their responses. 22 respondents also felt that face-to-face communication was better in order to avoid misunderstandings that might occur. When probed further, one respondent answered that it was because some people might not be fluent in a particular language, thus the aid of body language and facial expressions can help them avoid misunderstandings.

The respondents were also asked about their frequency of keeping in touch with different groups of people. It is evident that most respondents keep in touch with close friends at least twice a week. Half of the respondents said that they communicate with their course-mates and other friends three times a week, and when asked further, some of them said that it is necessary because many group discussions about academics-related topics are conducted via social media. Most respondents also communicate with their family via social media at least twice a week; whereas most of them (38.9%) keep in touch with people they know who are far away once a week. A whopping 73.6% of respondents said that they never communicate with strangers via social media, whereas none of them communicate with strangers more than three times a week. They were then probed further about why they never communicate with strangers via social media, and many of them said it was “dangerous” to do so because of the recent rise in cybercrime. Overall, 93.1% of respondents felt that social media has made it easier to communicate with family and friends, whereas a mere 6.9% said that social media has not made it easier. The few respondents who answered “no” were asked about the reasons why they felt that way, and they said that it was because not all their friends and family own social media accounts, so it made no difference to them.

Next, it was found that 72.2% of respondents felt that using social media affected their development and maintenance of relationships, whereas 27.8% did not. Those who said “yes” were then asked to choose what they felt was the positive implications of communication via social media and the negative implications. The responses of positive implications were balanced between strengthen relationships (34.7%), dare to express feelings (30.6%) and saves time and cost (34.7%). However, a majority of respondents felt that social media while able to strengthen relationships, also has the ability to weaken relationships as a result of reduced face-to-face communication (40.3%). 37.5% of them felt that misunderstandings can happen easily with social media, whereas only 22.2% feel that trust issues are a negative implication of social media use in communication.

Overall, out of all the respondents who answered that social media has affected the maintenance and development of their relationships, 77.5% said that it has affected them positively, whereas 22.5% of them said that it has affected them negatively. Finally, 81.9% of respondents said that they will continue to use social media in the near future, whereas 18.1% said that they will not use social media in the future anymore. The reasons why they felt that way varied, with some citing convenience as the main reason for continued use, and cybercrime and questions about cyber safety arose among those who said that they did not want to use social media anymore in the future.

The impact of the advent of social media is undeniable, especially in the field of communication. Nowadays, almost everyone owns a social media account, whether it is via a computer or on a smartphone. With that being said, it has been the goal of many researchers to identify the impact of social media on communication. Our study centered on youths in UNIMAS, and we were able to identify how youths use social media in the maintenance and development of their relationships. Firstly, we found that a vast majority of youths in this area do not use social media to forge new friendships with strangers online because of the recent rise in cybercrime, and they are vigilant about people they do not know. However, most of them believe that social media has helped them keep in touch with friends and family, thus, aided in the maintenance of relationships.

Besides that, we found that the digital behavior of youths in UNIMAS is they use social media mainly for communication purposes. The most popular social media used for communication is Facebook, and that other forms of social media such as Instagram, Twitter, WeChat and Skype have yet to gain popularity among youths in UNIMAS.

Finally, we found that a majority of youths in UNIMAS feel that social media has generally left a positive impact on their existing relationships, because it narrows geographical gaps. It is also much more convenient as it saves time and cost that would normally be incurred when meeting a friend or family member outside of one’s home. On the other hand, if it wasn’t for geographical distance, they would still prefer face-to-face communication because of the genuineness of being physically present as opposed to facing a computer or phone screen. They also believe that face-to-face communication is better in order to avoid misunderstandings that might occur, because they are afraid of ruining their relationships with family and friends. However, there is still a small portion of youths who prefer communication via social media because they are too shy and are afraid of saying the wrong thing, therefore would prefer to have time to formulate their thoughts and opinions before saying things, and this is a luxury face-to-face communication cannot offer.


Reference

Mustafa, M. (2015). Malaysians spend five hours online daily and it is mostly on social media, says report. The Malaysian Insider. Retrieved from http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysians-spend-five-hours-online-daily-and-it-is-mostly-on-social-media-s#sthash.38rONcYH.dpuf



By Khoo Gui Ling (41692)

Pornography and Technology

In this day and age, pornographic materials are obtainable everywhere, especially on the internet. Anyone can come across pornography, although they do not actively seek for it. An innocent search on Google online will expose them to porn, due to the advancing technology. For example, pornographic materials can be transmitted through the internet via emails or pop ups in a webpage. If you are actively seeking, it is as easy as ABC to search for the porn by simply one single click through Google search engine.

Hawkins and Zimring (1988) suggested that modern technology does alter the pornography access. The distribution of pornographic materials had been an issue concerned by the public since 1970 as mentioned by Hawkins and Zimring (1988). In general, pornography has always been disseminated in the form of film and videotape but the latest technology now is through websites. Lately, the pornography use is escalating due to the high accessibility of internet. According to the statistics in 2014, 12 % of the online websites are actually pornographic pages (Tan, 2014). Besides that, approximately 28,258 Internet users access pornographic websites every second (Tan, 2014).   

On the other hand, pornography has been attributed as one of the drivers that motivated the progression of Internet. It is the first product on the Internet that brings profit from the pay to view models as stated by Tan (2014). In other words, pornography actually encouraged the development of the internet and many other technologies, as silly as it may sound. Undeniably, pornography is still growing alongside the internet. 

Apart from that, Malaysia has enforced some policies in order to fight against the culture of pornography. As mentioned by Tan (2014), pornography is prohibited and banned under the Malaysian law, including possessing and dissemination of any type of sexually explicit materials. Approximately 8,719 websites that comprised of pornographic contents had been banned from 2008 until 2014 in accordance with the statistics given by Sheikh Raffie Abdul Rahman, the senior director of Strategic Communication Department (SCD) under the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) (Tan, 2014). 

In a nutshell, pornography can be viewed as the stimulus to the advancement and development of the technologies today. However, it is also an inducer to crime, for instance, rape. It is a tool that can cause social ills in the society if not used correctly.  

Reference

Hawkins, G., & Zimring, F. (1988). Pornography in a free society. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Tan, J. Y. (2014, September 15). Waging war against pornography. The Ant Daily Retrieved from http://www.theantdaily.com/Main/Waging-war-against-pornography




By Lee Hui Chin (41783)

Globalization: Good or Bad?

Globalization has made our world a much smaller place. With the increasing communication capabilities, the connection between people from all around the globe is getting much closer. Undoubtedly, globalization has helped demolish those walls that separate us, in addition also strengthened people’s connection.

Here is a quote from General Electric chairmen Jack Welch (2000) in Goldberg (2011) that boasts about globalization. “Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital - the world's best talents and greatest ideas.”

Globalization has brought plenty of changes in many aspects, especially in sectors like politics, social, technological, and even economics.  Thanks to globalization, free trade has become very accessible these days. Consumers can get imported product because of a chain of international markets that can freely trade with each other. This in turn helps in increasing the rate of production.

Besides, globalization has made us flat. This means that globalization allows the exchange of information between countries. Countries can disseminate and exchange information across borders without regards to distance, time or geography. Globalization may help in improving global telecommunications and transport links, making people even more connected at different places.

Moreover, globalization allows the expansion of business to other countries. For example, a company that manufactures communication devices in one country has the opportunity to open a factory in another country. It can generate more working opportunities to local people besides expanding original business. Economic growth of that country will increase with the foreign investments.

However, with the emergence of globalization, the rate of unemployment may increase. Companies tend to hire migrant workers because of their cheap labor. This can help the company to cut cost in terms of wages because foreign workers are cheaper than local workers, resulting in the increasing number of unemployment among locals. According to May (2016), Abbott Labs had replaced 180 local information-technology workers to foreign workers in March 2016. This mass layoff caused plenty of unemployed workers in the job market.

A consequence of globalization is the increased competitiveness in the marketplace. Globalization is a huge game of survival of the fittest. On one hand, positive competition is good because it can motivate business growth. However, on the other side of the coin, small companies might be pressured to shutdown due to the cost needed to compete with bigger companies.

In short, globalization has the potential to improve quality of life around the world. It makes this world a better place to live in, but there is also a trade-off we must be willing to make for nothing comes for free in this world.

                                                                                                                                                              

References

May, C. March 8, 2016. Outsourced Abbott Labs employee: “Not a level playing field in this game called globalization’’. Retrieved from www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/08/outsourced-professional-at-abbott-labs-my-trust-level-in-government-right-now-is-pretty-low/

Goldberg, E. July 4, 2011. How will the United States deal with the fissures created by globalization and meritocracy? Retrieved from http://www.theglobalist.com/americas-enduring-advantages/


By Chin Jia Ning (40867) 

Technology’s complicated relationship with food

Food photographers are nothing new in today’s day and age. Every individual can be labelled a food photographer as long as they own a digital device like a camera or smart phone. The trend started mushrooming in the 21^st century due to the advancement of technology and the development of new media. Plus, today, the phenomenon of taking photos of your food before you eat has turned out as one of the most common habits of the tech-savvy regardless age and gender-- even grandparents nowadays do so!

Whichever age group or gender, the habit of taking photos of food before (or after) and then posting them to Instagram or the likes have slowly spread into the society without our knowing and has transformed into being a popular global culture today. This has proven that all human beings are affected by the new media in this era of globalization.

Why we do so? Apart from sharing your activities with other people, filling up your Facebook timeline, updating your current posts on Instagram, and attracting attention from friends and strangers, well, there is scientific reason to justify the act. According to a study found in the Journal of Consumer Marketing, there is a positive relationship between the effort of a foodie who intends to get the perfect photo the food and the degree of enjoyment to the food afterwards (The feast staff, 2016). The theory- “Eat with our eyes first” has been proposed by scholars who further explained that when we take photos of the dish, the act eventually stimulates the brain cells to “taste” the dishes intensively. Somehow, this would eventually increase one’s appetite. In other words, it makes food taste better since the “outlook” is pleasant and has a high aesthetic value.

However, Kingkade (2013) reported that there is a researcher who claimed that “Instagram-ing” the food can potentially trigger body problems such as eating disorders and may also influence the food’s role in our culture. He said that health issues like obesity might happen because individuals consume excess foods for the sake of food photography in their social media account. He also mentioned that taking photo of food may eventually signify mental problems and other health issues; and this was supported by other scholars like Dr. Valerie Taylor (Dixler, 2013). Also, there are some ladies who are willing to spend more than 30 minutes to take nice photos of the food or even themselves even though the food is ready to serve on dining table.  Obviously, this has totally altered the role of food to us, as a human being.

As discussed in the article, technology may facilitate daily tasks in terms of increasing productivity and efficiency. But, it can also be linked complicatedly to our life especially with regards the food. So, whether we change the “ritual” or not, depends on how you judge it.

References:

Dixler, H. (2013). Expert: Photographing food may be sign of mental illness. Retrieved from

http://www.eater.com/

Kingkade, T. (2013, May 10). Instagramming your food may signal bigger problem, researcher

says. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

The feast staff. (2016). Here’s why you should always take photos of your food before you eat

it. Retrieved from http://www.bravotv.com/

By Ng Mei Chee (42680)