Social-networking sites have taken off in Indonesia. Who will profit?
Jan 6th 2011 | JAKARTA | from the print edition of The Economist
WHAT does the most populous Muslim nation do in its spare time? Increasingly, it swaps gossip online. Indonesia is now the world’s second-largest market for Facebook and the third-largest for Twitter, according to several web research firms. For industry insiders, however, the most exciting statistic is not how many Indonesians use social media, but how many still don’t. Of 230m or so Indonesians, fewer than 20% are connected to the internet.
Foreign firms see untapped potential. Facebook doesn’t even have an office in Indonesia, yet it has grown like crazy, to 30m users. In May last year Yahoo! ventured into this fizzing market by buying Koprol, a location-based social network. Indonesian culture seems particularly receptive to online socialising. People love publicity, don’t fret much about privacy and gleefully follow trends. “Everything is about friends and location,” says Andy Zain, the founder of MobileMonday Indonesia, a networking forum.
The biggest question for everyone is how to make money from Indonesians’ interest in connecting with one another. Michael Smith, who led Yahoo!’s acquisition of Koprol, says the payoff will take time: “I always tell people that the volumes and willingness of customers to pay in Indonesia [are] so low that you can’t expect gargantuan revenues from it today.”
Western firms are only just beginning to grasp the eccentricities of the Indonesian social-media market. Thanks to years of price wars between Indonesia’s three major telecommunications companies, mobile contracts in the country are dirt-cheap. For Indonesians living in North America, it is often cheaper to buy an Indonesian SIM card and roam with it than it is to sign up for a local plan.
Phones are cheap, too: the country is flooded with Chinese handsets costing only $30-40. Indonesia is also one of the largest markets for Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerrys. Indonesians typically connect with each other via mobile devices, not personal computers.
Facebook and Google make money in North America and Europe from display advertising, but this is much harder in Indonesia. Few locals have credit cards or bank accounts, making it hard for them to click on a link and buy something. For large purchases online, payment is generally made by bank transfer. Social-media firms are investigating whether they can tap the microtransactions market—say, by offering virtual currencies or goods that users can use as barter—though forced partnerships with local telecoms firms threaten the profitability of such schemes.
So far, only one firm has cracked the payments nut. Inspired by China’s QQ and Grameen Phone of Bangladesh, Mig33, a firm whose main product is a mobile social-networking application, has set up a virtual economy. Some 4,000 merchants in 150 countries sell “credits” to users, who then can spend them online: sending messages to friends, playing games, or sending virtual gifts. The firm has raised $34m in funding since its inception in 2005. Its founder, Steven Goh, says it will post profits this year. Indonesia is its largest market.
When hobnobbing in cyberspace, Indonesians are especially likely to use avatars rather than real pictures of themselves, says Mr Goh. “Indonesia is a moderate Muslim country where people are creating new virtual identities completely different [from] their real identities,” he explains. Users with black eyes and black hair, say, may create virtual personae with grey eyes and blond hair.
This is common elsewhere in East Asia and in the Middle East, too. But Indonesia is a special case, reckons Mr Goh: its social networks freely integrate both real and imagined selves. The archipelago could prove a useful test market for tech firms seeking to enter the wide-open and barely understood social-networking markets of the rest of Asia.
from the print edition | Business
Well this one is interesting. I would like to tell bit about my habit. Ever since I got my hands on a smartphone, it really hard for me to let go of it, because of the social media installed in it. I don't know why, but it seems like me and other Indonesians who are addicted to social media started to keen on this because maybe it's the natural sense of Indonesian because we come from different places and for the whole time we were separated land to land, so that's why once we find a way to connect with each other, why not? That goes the same to me, especially because I'm far away from home and I want to stay connected with friends, and also family. As for the one who gain the profit, I guess everyone does, both consumer and provider of the social media itself. The consumers get the service, the providers get the payment. I guess it's fair enough for both sides. I also agree with the statement that we are high on social media market. Most people say that this is a bad thing, but for me, it's a good thing. Why? Because that's going to prove the world that Indonesia can answer the challenge of globalization by 'buying' every thing manufactured outside of Indonesia, for example the social media. We can afford to 'handle' this social media while there are some parts of the world which are still untouched by social media. In other words, Indonesia is up to date about a thing or two happening outside. That's my opinion.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion Indonesians are totally addicted to social media networks and communicating in general. Everywhere you go you can see Indonesians phoning or typing with their cellphone or tablet pc. “Everything is about friends and location,” which is totally true. For Indonesia, as a very collectivist society, personal relationships are enormously important. Germans in contrast to Indonesians don´t like to add people as friends in facebook who they don´t know personally, but in Indonesia it is good to have as many friends as possible, because everything is about personal contacts that may one day become very useful either for the personal or the business life.
ReplyDelete“Indonesia is a moderate Muslim country where people are creating new virtual identities completely different from their real identities”
This may be due to the many restrictions Muslims have to face in their everyday life. The social networks offers them as everyone else the possibility to have something like a second, virtual life where you can be someone else than yourself. Sometimes you may not be satisfied with your real life, then you can go to the internet and do things you would never do in real life, because you can do it kind of anonymously or with a false identity.
I think Dina’s opinion is so true. Some Indonesians do think like that, and do things that they would not do in the real life because they could not do it due to the restriction of the family or may be from the culture.
DeleteThese days Indonesians are so up to date, and Indonesians are typically people who got addicted easily, they are following for what is becoming a trend, and they do not want to left behind the age. In my opinion it is good, I mean by following the trend, Indonesians will slightly more advance day to day. There might have some job, business and other opportunities out there; opening an online shop, knowing that there is scholarship, etc. And I think by using social media, it might help Indonesians to have broad range of it, and give some good impact for Indonesians.
In my other opinion, I know that some Indonesians also use this social media to express their self in a wrong way, they post some things that should be posted, and stuff. And I know sometimes social media could also become a dangerous and criminal media. But I think it can be prevented by giving some warnings to the user to be careful in adding friends and accepting friends requests.
Dinah has made some interesting observations on Indonesians and their use of social media. Do they ring true for any of her Indonesian classmates?
ReplyDeleteHaving experienced life in The Netherlands and Singapore, I think it's safe for me to say that Dinah hit the sweet spot regarding the social culture in Indonesia. Social media is like the sun in which many Indonesians' lives revolve around. As an Indonesian myself, guilty as charged, I actively use Twitter and Facebook and many of my Facebook friends are actually mere acquaintances. However, I don't think I'm obsessed with social media; quite the opposite to that, I tend to use it accordingly and only when necessary (probably more due to me being an introverted person and peer pressure).
ReplyDeleteOne thing I observe from my fellow Indonesians is that they are crazy about social status, thus the excessive use of social media. Being the most popular guy or girl in a room full of their peers probably entices more people than being given a million rupiah. This might explain the crazy popularity of talent shows such as Indonesian Idol and X-Factor which promise the winner of instant popularity and also the public adoration for fame-seeking celebrities such as Dewi Persik and Syahrini. Social media, I think, is only a tiny bit in the grand scheme, a mere medium for a larger goal: a personal social empire.
Regarding the popularity culture in Indonesia, you might have heard your Indonesian seniors talking about how 'utterly useless' your 4 years in UGM could be if you don't join any student organisation that they organise. This kind of stigma is practically unheard of in The Netherlands and even in Singapore, our close neighbours. I guess it is a desperate call from them for the juniors to join those clubs and organisations, because without the juniors, how could the seniors assert their seniority in their organisations? The more, the merrier for them. Don't get me wrong though, there are benefits to joining those organisations and you should strongly consider them before making any decision. I just think that there are some underlying goals that they want to achieve by joining those organisations, which are climbing up the social ladder, being more prominent than most, and gaining the power that comes with the social status.
I think I shifted my focus from Indonesians' use of social media to the general popularity-obsessed culture in Indonesia at the end. These are my two cents, though. Feel free to add to them where you see fit.
Thanks Andre for your interesting observations.
DeleteHowever, forgive me, I have got my Pedantic Pants on. I would like to talk about a minor detail from your writing...
You said: "I think it's safe for me to say that Dinah hit the sweet spot regarding the social culture in Indonesia."
I think it's safe for you to say that Dinah hit the spot regarding the social culture in Indonesia but I am not so sure you can say that she hit a "sweet spot". Can you justify using this idiom in this case? I am willing to be convinced. Google it and get back to me.
Thanks for your remark, Mr. Coen. My memory of its usage seems to come from playing pool, where hitting the sweet spot means hitting the perfect contact spot, but my other memory of playing darts tells me that 'hitting the bull's eye' might be more apt in the context.
DeleteAfter a bit of a Google check, its usage seems to be more common in sports. In a figurative (non-sports) sense, it might mean 'to be (very or highly) successful, to succeed greatly in one's ventures'. Eg, if a smartphone's price hits the sweet spot, it means just a little deviation from that particular price and I won't buy that phone. Putting that into context, I'm afraid my version of 'hitting the sweet spot' doesn't convey the message as I intended it to.
I guess your 'hitting the spot' works for me. I'm curious though, can I really say 'hitting the bull's eye' in that context?
Yes. We can say Dinah "hit the bull's eye" with her comments [and she is not the only one to have done this with a comment on this blog so far]. There is a "sweet spot" in acoustics too.
DeleteI hope you interpret my picking up on this relatively tiny detail as an implicit acknowledgement of the quality of your writing!
Social media in Indonesia, yeah it’s really interesting to many people (actually it’s made addiction too), so I can say, social media same as drugs, when we enter that world, we can’t easily out from it and all of you have to know that I have entered that world, I feel so empty if my cleverphone not in my hand hahaha, I can’t update my status, my position and retweet a lot of interesting quotes on twitter, do you feel same as me?
ReplyDeleteBut even you addict to social media in Indonesia, you must try to organize your time, not only to chit chat with your friends via LINE, BBM or anything else, cause I think that real life chat is different with it, you can be very active when chatting in social media, but in real life you’re so quiet. It’s better if you active in both side, haha but don’t forget about study, we are still student of FEB IUP UGM.
This article caught my eyes right away.
ReplyDelete“Everything is about friends and location,”
It is true that Indonesians tend to write on statuses about how they feel, what they are doing, or check-in to the places they’re visiting. In my opinion, there are many reasons why most Indonesian teenagers do this.
Sometimes it’s because they want to be heard. Usually, from what I always witness in my everyday life, some teenagers post their problem on statuses. When we’re facing a problem, we tend to have the need to talk to someone about it, and some people sometimes don’t have anyone they feel comfortable enough to be talked to, so they end up on posting how they feel on twitter or facebook just to let go of how they feel. This can also happen simply when they feel lonely and they want to just talk to someone because most Indonesian teenagers tend to stay at home during the holiday and have absolutely nothing to do.
Sometimes it’s about popularity. This sounds silly but some teens use social network to increase popularity or sometimes just to be able to fit in and keep up with their friends.
That’s why I think social network is so popular here. As an Indonesian myself, I admit that I’m also active on social networks. But I think that doing it too often is just wrong. People who stay too long online will eventually lose their ability to talk in person. So what I’m saying is that being active on social networks is needed sometimes but just don’t do it too often.
"Usually, from what I always witness in my everyday life, some teenagers post their problem on statuses. When we’re facing a problem, we tend to have the need to talk to someone about it, and some people sometimes don’t have anyone they feel comfortable enough to be talked to, so they end up on posting how they feel on twitter or facebook just to let go of how they feel. This can also happen simply when they feel lonely..."
DeletePerhaps Facebook in Indonesia could be called Galaubook or TemanBanyakBangetbook.
"This article caught my eyes right away."
DeleteThe idiom is "to catch one's eye" [singular] not "eyes".
On the other hand, we say "I couldn't believe my eyes" [plural] and NOT "I couldn't believe my eye".
This is a very interesting topic to be discussed. Indonesia is a developing country. Since the Internet was introduced in Indonesia on the late 90s, many people are now using the Internet. Almost 50% of 250 millions people in Indonesia are now using the Internet. Social media is becoming one of the basic needs for Indonesian. When Facebook was created, until 2009 the number of Indonesian who using Facebook is less than 100 thousands people. But now, in 2013 Indonesia is the second biggest country that uses Facebook. Not only Facebook many Indonesian using Twitter, Blogger, and other social media as well. This showing that Indonesia’s advance technology is growing faster than ever. Now in the 2013 people not using the Internet only but using the smartphones too. In Indonesia we can get smartphones easily and the price are not that expensive comparing to the other country. With reasonable price to get smartphones people in Indonesia becoming what we called as a “gadget freak”. When there is a new type of gadget on the market, people are racing to get the gadget whatever it takes. So when there are so many people using the smartphones it’s a guarantee that those people will connect or use the social media as well. Social media helps people to connect with other people. Indonesia is a country with a lots of island therefor it’s difficult to interact with other people from different island. Social media will help to stay in touch with friends or relatives from different island. This also on of the reason many people in Indonesia are using the social media.
ReplyDelete"Indonesia is a country with a lots of island therefor it’s difficult to interact with other people from different island."
DeleteI often hear this point made. What percentage of your social media friends in fact are located on this island, i.e. Java?
I agree with the title of this article, "Eat, Pray, Tweet”
ReplyDeleteThe statement above supported by the fact that Indonesian teenagers who has a lot restrictions from their parents will seek for attention from their friends or other people, by tweeting a lot. They want to stand out in the public. They do it by taking pictures of food almost whenever they can, they even tweet while they are in the toilet. By tweeting a lot or standing out in the socialmedia, teenagers will feel popular than in real-life.
But nowadays i think people rarely use socialmedia for their mission in seeking popularity with their friends, people start using the socialmedia for the right purpose, connect with people. Like me for example, using socialmedia to contact with my highschool friends in bali. People who still using socialmedia for attention are teenagers. And i think the title needed one more word, it supposed to be "Wake up, Eat, Pray, Tweet" because there are a lot of tweets in the morning which says "Morning World"
I can definitely agree with the point that Indonesians make enormous use of social media. In Germany most of the people have Facebook, too but Indonesian people use it in a different way. It starts with that they add everyone as their friends, even if they don’t know the person they are adding. Because of that I already have so many friends requests since I came here, and some of them are from people that I have never seen in my life. As I am German I don’t accept those people, Indonesians however would do that. In Indonesia having 1500 Facebook friends is quite normal in my perception. In Germany people normally only add people as friends that are also their friends in real life. Furthermore, I have the impression that Indonesians do a lot more posts on Facebook than Europeans. It seems that Indonesians want to share everything they do with their friends. That is because Indonesia is a collectivist society and therefore personal contacts are very important. Indonesians are always connected to the internet and hence to social media. What is strange for Europeans is that they even access Facebook and other social media during their working time and nobody seems to be bothered by that. It sometimes happens to me that I go to a shop and the shop assistant first finishes typing his or her Facebook message before helping me. That could cost you your job in Europe!
ReplyDeleteI think the title of this article represents the Indonesian people habit which is "Eat, Pray, Tweet". In my case, because I have this thing called smartphone, it is hard for me to let go of it. Every second I always check up on my phone just to access social media I have. It's such an addiction and makes me waste my time only checking up on things. So , I spend most of my time doing unproductive things rather than doing something more useful. And I’m really sure it also happens to other millions Indonesian people. That makes my parents not allowing me to use my phone when I’m with them. Because using my phone means disturbing my time with them.
ReplyDeleteBut honestly, I’m kind of irritated by people who always tweet personal things like “Oh My God I just had a broken heart”, “I feel so lonely tonight…”, or maybe just “Hungry…” and it makes me think that “Is it really important to let the world know every single thing about your condition?!” That makes most of Indonesian people waste their time by tweeting, tweeting, and tweeting. I mean, you can tweet anything you want but please consider which one is important to tweet or disturbing anyone’s timeline.
This article addresses an interesting and relevant topic in the everyday life of Indonesians. Social media is practiced almost everywhere nowadays and the increase of highly sophisticated portable gadgets is definitely supporting this trend. When I arrived in Indonesia I was surprised by the large number of students with smartphones and tablet computers. In Germany however, only a minority of students uses tablets. The urge of being connected, online and reachable 24/7 is especially highly developed in Indonesia. Nowhere else have I ever seen people bringing their tablet computer to a club in order to check the latest news on Facebook or Twitter! The reason why especially Indonesia is so suited for social media interactions is the collective culture. Indonesians love doing things together in groups and interacting with people. A large number of friends are of vital importance. If you check for example the amount of Facebook friends of Indonesians, you will see that most of them have reached or even exceeded 1000 friends. Facebook is not only used for private interactions with friends but also for business and university. In Germany this would be considered as unprofessional and therefore the Facebook profile is kept more private. The increasing trend for social media and the fact that Indonesia is the fourth largest country in the world (regarding its population) contributes to Indonesia being a very attractive and promising market for further social media investments. Yet one should not forget that Indonesia is still a developing country. Internet is very expensive here and a lot of people can neither afford the money for it, nor for a phone or computer to use it. The people with smartphones or tablets are more situated in the middle class, which is still very moderate. However, according to BCG (Boston Consulting Group), the Indonesian middle class is expected to grow by 90% by 2020. To sum up, Indonesia has definitely an enormous potential regarding the future outlook of the social media market.
ReplyDeletehaha i agree with "eat, pray, tweet" . This article is really interesting, people in Indonesia always use their gadget or their smartphones to tweet everything they do or they just use it for take their pictures from the front camera then give the effect to the photo so they look beautiful enough in that pictures. Tweeting everywhere is a bad habit and it's populer in Indonesia. We know that we're not allow to texting while driving, but now not only texting, they twitting, chatting on their facebook, and many more. Many accidents caused by people who drove the car was using their phone. How can we change this bad habit while the world is become more hitech everyday? We can't stop this social media fever but at least we should substract this bad habit because this social media fever can bring many scandals. But the positive thing, with social media, we're facilitated to communicate with others without any additional cost like if we send a short message service to a friend from another country. The social media also helps our president to share about important thing that we have to know from him, and twitter make him easy to communicate with people. And social media also helps the singer to publish their new song, tour schedule, and many more. So, I think social media is very useful if we use it correctly. Let's start use all social media correctly and try not to use it too often because it is a bad habit.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, Indonesians enjoy tweeting so much, because I admit that I'm one of them. For me, tweeting is like expressing some thoughts that popped out in my mind and well.. I just want to tweet. Sometimes whenever I don't know what to do, I go to twitter via my phone, to check the tweets even though sometimes there are no recent tweets at all on my timeline because I keep refreshing the timeline.
ReplyDeleteWe can't hide the fact that social media make the news and informations spread faster than newspaper or even the portal news on website. Gossips are spread so fast via twitter. In my case, I know the updates of my favorite korean groups via twitter.
Just want to give another example, there are Path and Foursquare. These social medias are allowed us to check in a place where we are visiting, and also allow us to insert photo, and with one touch, you connect the foursquare or path to twitter, voila! People who are your followers on twitter know where are you right now and what are you doing, even whom you are with. Sometimes I do that but some people do that without knowing the risk. I mean, for example, there are teenagers who tweet, "home alone :(" and share their locations via path or foursquare and it appears on their twitter. The problem is, do they know that what if there are bad guys who know their exact location and know that they are alone at that time so they could do something bad to them?
I don't know why would they share their exact location of their address. It might be dangerous for them, I think, and I agree with the statement above:"Indonesian culture seems particularly receptive to online socialising. People love publicity, don’t fret much about privacy and gleefully follow trends."
Social media, the way we communicate in the modern world. Sharing your status, from sadness, to happiness, commenting of photos of your experience, and creating groups of various hobbies. It is as if our world is now inside machines, we depend on them, our virtual life. Every time you have an opportunity to open your gadget, either laptop, or smart phone, you will automatically open them, checking for new messages, status update from friends, etc.
ReplyDeleteHowever, despite of that, it is now seems necessary to have at least a social media account as employees often ask whether you have them or not (usually facebook or twitter). This increases the level of dependence towards those virtual life. Furthermore, social media has now been use to mock other people, or society, or ideology by impersonating them. For example, making a new account using the name of famous celebrities which do not have that account yet. From what I learn, this method is used by those 'punks' so that they could sell that account with high price later to them.
Oza
Eat, pray, tweet.
ReplyDeleteUgh, I couldn't think of any other activities that could sweep the last word away. It is quite embarrassing when the question "What does the most populous Muslim nation do in its spare time?" came out, and the answer to that is "it swaps gossip online. Indonesia is still a developing country, yet people of the country likes to "make companies enjoy their high-booming profits" by using Facebook, Twitter, other social-network media, or even using the gadget alone. The benefits? Well, it "makes them exist" in both real and virtual world. It's a good place to share feelings to others too, but do we really have to announce where we are, what's in our mind, how we're doing, and asking for suggestion of emotional problems to the WORLD?
I'm not really keen about social-networking; as the matter of fact, I only make a Facebook account this month, and it's for academical purpose. The only network I'm active most of the time is Twitter, and I use a screen name on in to conceal my identity so that people don't have to know who I am.
See? I just shared my thought here and believe me, few people would care or even notice my intention. What I just did, however, is sharing my thought to the world, where many people could read it and they could know a tiny bit information about me. If it's useful opinion, though, then I might unintentionally did something good to them.
"People love publicity, don’t fret much about PRIVACY and gleefully follow trends." Oh, wow. People don't care with privacy anymore? Have they really take a complete leave of their senses? If that's what they want, why all idols all over the world spend their lives trying to hide their true nature from the world, especially from the annoying paparazzi? No wonder why there are so many people's embarrassing rubbish spread across the internet, even if it's just a mock-up, and they don't care about it.
The thing about most people of Indonesia being unable to use credit feature by financial reason is something, too. It gives me an image that Indonesian are just "gaptek" or unable to use today's technologies. Sure, Indonesian have so many gadgets, as evident from the article, "the country is flooded with Chinese handsets costing only $30-40. Indonesia is also one of the largest markets for Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerrys.", but few of them understand most of the phone's function. They don't care about it as long as it can use social networks, photographing, phone-calling, and it's easy to use. When the gadget broke, either by internal or external cause, they simply "throw them away" and buy new one. I know a friend's mother who couldn't understand "how to do this, how to do that" and all she ever did is asking my friend how to fix it without trying to do so herself. It's ludicrous. That's what I mean by "people like to make companies enjoy their high-booming profits."
As for the financial reason, well, it's something I can't lay a finger on. It's their own personal reason, and I respect their privacy. If someone ever post "Problem! I have no money!" or "If someone could help me, I'll give you money.", I will say it out loud that he or she must be the dumbest human in the history of the world.
Oh, I just shared my thought again. Don't bother it. After all, it's just an opinion of mine, and if someone ever feel insulted, just accept it, because you are one step closer to those money-bribing executives.
Well the topic is good and this is the real situation in our country now when most of the people get addicted to the smartphone and lot of social media application inside they might be forget about the real world and start chatting and surfing at the internet and now it’s time to begin the sign off from the social media for a while because we living here at the real world with the real people near of you. You just can forget about them and drowned at the social media world I use the social media such as twitter, line, facebook and skype to communicate with my family at Jakarta but I can’t just chatting all the time with mya family I have to socialized with my friends here in jogja and as a moslem I have to do my duty to praying minimum 5 times per day so social media is just a supplement to our life and just helping us to socialized with the people all around the world and it’s not good if it is become an addiction.
ReplyDeleteConnectivity and communication seemed to become the most basic needs of every Indonesians. One will have to wonder, however, on why most Indonesians behave this way. In my opinion, this was all due to the collective mindset of Indonesians, in which everyone will feel the need to be connected with each other. This collectivity stems from the ideology of the state itself: unity, in which everyone must bring along togetherness very close to everyone!
ReplyDeleteI however, frown upon the trend of this mindset. Being together is a good thing to do, but when everyone believes that any kind of truth will have to come from one source that is from others, it removes any kind of individuality from anyone. The lack of individuality threatens critical thinking from those within the collective. This phenomenon will simply make the users likened to a herd of sheep: mindlessly following whatever they are given. This in turn will make them vulnerable to exploitation, especially by businesses mentioned above. Note however, that while I do not detest technology, the effect that it will make Indonesians even more consumptive does not help the economy right now.
Honestly, it works on me, too. Before I got my first smartphone, I never check it every minute. I could reply the messages after one day since the messages was sent from my friends. But since I got my first smartphone, I feel like I can't let go of it. I'm kinda addicted. But luckily, I can handle my hands from typing and checking my social media account. Even more since the "alayers" colonized the social media walls such as Facebook or Twitter, I feel they disturbed my eyes so much with their unnecessary words and numbers that equals to alphabet (according to them). I don't even know where the habits of making numbers to be equal to alphabet is coming from. I think we can only find that type of habit in Indonesia.
ReplyDeleteAnd I have one pathetic story. There was a man that probably in a sad condition. He went to the internet café and told his story on his Facebook wall, and looks like he has surrendered with his life. He wrote that he wanted to die. And on his way home, he was probably too upset so he didn't concentrate while driving. He crossed the train rail while the train is drove rapidly. He got hit by the train and his status came true.
So we can conclude that words are truly prayers, and don't be that such storyteller. Use the social media wisely, and never forget that we have another useful activity that more important than checking your social media all the time.
"And I have one pathetic story. There was a man that probably in a sad condition. He went to the internet café and told his story on his Facebook wall, and looks like he has surrendered with his life. He wrote that he wanted to die. And on his way home, he was probably too upset so he didn't concentrate while driving. He crossed the train rail while the train is drove rapidly. He got hit by the train and his status came true."
ReplyDeleteIs this true or apocryphal?
The first time I see the title that “Eat, Pray, Tweet” it seems funny, however this is the truth how Indonesian people do they daily activities. We can’t dodge from the truth that “eat, pray, tweet” are the most activities of Indonesian people especially teenagers. I am the person who doesn’t like tweeting too much, but some of my friends use twitter to share their problem, check-in whenever they are in somewhere or post their photos. In my opinion, the person who likes tweeting so much is kind of popular person in his/her environment. Why do I said so, because it is based on my experience.
ReplyDeleteSome people also become addicted so much in tweeting. They probably can’t get off from their smart phone even in a minute. Then, we all know that texting while driving is prohibited, but I am sure that there are some people who tweeting while driving. So, use your twitter properly and wisely.
Nowadays, internet is like the must thing we have. Indonesia is the one country which has a rapidly change in technology. Everyone has a smartphone, even they actually do not really need it. Let say, parent who bought it for their child who still elementary school.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, internet, especially social media which usually used by teenagers can make the user addicted. I confess, i am the one of victim of social media. I tweet every day, i check the timeline every minutes, i check in to let other know where I am at the moment. This also affected to my study. I can not concentrate when i was in the class. I just to check my phone every time. But now, I am not tweeting too much. Maybe just five tweets a week because of my college daily life. But the bad thing is, I miss my friend's birthday. I forgot to say happy birthday to her. Because usually i know her birthday from twitter. Not only a birthday, but the news that booming in that day.
Teenagers is the especial victim for social media and smartphone. Some years ago, they like compete to buy blackberry. But,since social media like path, instagram booming out but can not used in blackberry, they compete to buy another smartphone like iphone and samsung. So, smartphone is not a requirement for teenager, especially. But it's difficult to cut the relationship between teenagers and social media or smartphone. The solution is, we need to use internet wisely.
“Eat, pray, and tweet”. I agree with this statement. Nowadays, people, especially Indonesian teenagers, love to use social media such as Twitter, Facebook, Path, Blackberry Messenger, Line, Foursquare, and many more. The newest social media which I know is Path. People like to say something what’s in their mind. They like to share where they are, with whom, and what they are doing. “Bruch at Hoka-Hoka Bento with Sara” is one of the example statuses on Path. Well, I admit that I also active in social media. But, I am not a person who can share or tweet in social media about something in my mind. Sometimes, I only update where and with who I am. Some people really love to spend their time for tweeting in social media, share something what’s on their mind in every minute. It’s like they have so much time and nothing to do, so they just keep tweeting all day long. Moreover, their tweets are about confusing their love (galau in Indonesian) or writing rude words if they’re upset. This kind of people, sometimes will be the nice topics for gossiping by the others who see their tweets. My advice is you may tweet or update your status but in a good way and not every minute. :D
ReplyDeleteThis kind of article really caught the teenager and young adult interest because most of the social media users are them. The title of this article ‘Eat, Pray, Tweet’ makes me feel like quite embarrassed actually. Social media is created to make communication between people easier than before. Actually, I communicate with my parents who lives in Jakarta with social media called Line and Skype. I really feel grateful that kind of social media exist. However, I do not see the important things to tweet whatever song you listen now, how mad are you, how sad are you or always post about their idols. I do not want people ruin my morning by see someone’s tweet an angry statement, I am happier to read post that contains inspiration or happiness.
ReplyDeleteMichael Smith state that they cannot expect high profit from Indonesian people to pay something by credit card or visa. Well, as one of Indonesian teenagers, I am not willing to buy something overseas which the transportagtion cost more expensive that the price of the good, and I also think if I can get something free why I must willing to pay it?
“Indonesia is a moderate Muslim country where people are creating new virtual identity that completely different [from] their real identities,” that what Mr Goh explain in this article. My opinios is we cannot judge people from where they lives. I mean that every person have their explanation and have different opinions so I do not agree if he said all Indonesia citizen are like that.
As we know, gadget and social media are two things that can not be separated, they have occupied a major position in our life. Without gadgets and all the applications, it seems would be harder to meet people and create new relationships. The gadgets that used to be an accessory or luxury have, now become a social necessity. Because in every second, new gadgets are being introduced for people around the world. The current technology allows us to text, post photos, and interact through facebook, twitter, path, foursquare or instagram.
ReplyDeleteInfact, social media has been revolutionizing our lives with instant communication that make us easier to share our life without worried about distance and time. But, it has a dark side, as well. Because social networking encourage people to be more public about their personal lives. Three months ago, I ever read an article about social media addiction in ‘Project’ magazine: “recent study by Harvard University shows evidence as to why social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are so popular and highly addictive for many people. Through the secondary experiment, researchers found that when people got to share their thoughts with a friend or family member, there was a larger amount of activity in the reward region of their brain, and less of a reward sensation when they were told their thoughts would be kept private.” So, maybe it can be the answer why are people addicted to social media.
When I read the words “Eat, Pray, Tweet”, I immediately giggle and realize that these words really describe me. Embarrassing. Let me tell you first why I use twitter. I have been tweeting since years ago. Mostly only because through twitter I can catch up with my old friends from cities where I ever lived before, because I lived my life moving from one to another city in Indonesia every several years. Yes, it’s mostly about friends. Besides that, I don’t know why but I can’t really write any other positive value that I can get from twitter. I try to think deeply, but I just can’t find it. I know that tweeting doesn’t really give any benefit for me, but I can’t really stop it, because it already feels like a habit. When I check my phone to see if there is message, I always check my twitter account too whether there is mention from someone. Although I don’t usually tweet a lot, but I think I have to be wiser to manage my time now. I must reduce the time I usually use for tweeting, self reflected.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this article. A lot of people will make profit from this phenomenon. As you can see, there are so many online shops that have accounts on social media. They sell different stuffs, you can find anything there. But mostly, they are selling clothes. I used to be one of them.
ReplyDeleteBack in 2011, one of my favorite singers from America came to Indonesia. My parents said that I could watch his concert if I paid my own ticket. At that time, I don’t have enough money to buy the ticket. Suddenly, I had an idea to open an online shop on twitter. I asked my friend to help me. Our target was fan girls, because most of them did not mind to spend a lot of money to buy stuffs relate to their idols. Therefore, we decided to sell jackets that have certain idol’s faces on it. The next day, after we made our account on twitter, a popular account that has thousands followers promoted us. Having said that, about 100 jackets was sold out in only 2 weeks. We were very happy and excited. My friend and I could buy the most expensive tickets to my idol’s concert. Thank you twitter (and Indonesians who are addicted to it).
This is a quite interesting topic for me. I have been a social media user since I was in junior high school, but I am not that kind of 10-tweets-a-day guy who spams the timeline with unnecessary stuff. I only use social media to keep in touch with my primary and junior high school mates, also my family. Sometimes I use them to promote my EDM songs which i love to create. But nowadays internet is not one hundred percent safe. There are many deceptions involves the social media. I have many friends who got deceived when they bought something online from the social media like instagram,facebook,etc. So, you would better check the seller’s credibility before you deal the trade and transfer your money to them. It would be better if you buy things online from trusted sellers. But to be honest we can’t stay connected well with our friends if we don’t have any social media at all.
ReplyDeleteMy personal opinion on this, is that I think Indonesian people desperately need to be heard. Not all, but definitely most Indonesian. They don't really show it in their real life, but deep down they really need to be heard. They need the acknowledgment from others. It's not a matter of “want” anymore, it's a matter of “need.” Indonesian really wants all people to know what they're up to; what they're doing, where they are, what they eat, what they're wearing and so on. That will have to explain the constantly updated status from people, especially Indonesian's teenagers, in social media.
ReplyDeleteThis is not a bad thing, I would say, as long as we are not attached to it. But that's not what happen in Indonesia. Most people can't even survive a day without doing Facebook, Twitter, Path, etc. To be honest, I used to open Twitter everyday, well maybe at least once every two hours. Then I realized that it's no use. I wasted hours of my life just to care about what people are tweeting and keeping up with the latest gossip. My future was not getting any brighter when I did that, so that's why I stopped.
And a lot of people doing this to fit into society. To be a part of a group. Sometimes for them it means to have the same opinion about something or to mock and gossip about the same person. It's also because of the well-known habit of Indonesian, that is to talk about other people behind their back. They keep looking at other people's status so they'll be able to talk about it. Very Indonesian.
I think we all need to review our own purposes on doing it. If it's for fun and we're not attached to it, then it's okay. But if we feel like we have some kind of obligation to do it, then it's a problem. We just have to remember that it's okay to live our own life the way it is. Let's make friends with real people, not only with social media's accounts.
Maybe some reasons why there is so many Indonesian use social media is, in this modern era, almost every people have their own smartphone, with their smartphone they can access social media, another reason is some of Indonesian wanted to be famous and respected from their friends, besides that I am as Indonesian who felt the social media in Indonesia also think that Indonesian use their social media to show what they have. My suggestion is people of Indonesia should remember that they have real world outside their social media life, if they forgot about their real life, there will be some bad effect that they will get. I am not saying that doing some activities in cyber world is bad, but we have a real world to life. So we should manage our time very well, you can do some activities in cyber world but don’t forget about your real life. Doing some activities in cyber world can also give us positive effect, but everything that too much is bad.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, seems everyone is carrying at least one mobile from elementary school children up to elderly, people at white-collar job up to blue or even those living at the bottom of salary standard. In Malioboro you could find pedicab drivers that update their status when they got nothing to do. Although, I shall agree to some report which said ; the usage is mainly for texting and chatting and not yet for browsing information or transaction over online shopping. This means still there is space for internet– based trading to grow. Shopping on-line or other virtual trading can be generated when Indonesian awareness of less mobile and their trust on virtual transaction are developed too. Looking at potential number of market as well as bold consumerism attitudes within Indonesian society. Thanks to Globalization and the improvement on technologies, most people with low salary -such as pedicab driver- could bought a smartphone wannabe which built with crappy quality, comes with a very low price about less than 600.000 rupiah and it was made in china.
ReplyDeleteIndonesians can’t life without social media. Social media takes an important part in our life. Every day, we always use social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Path, Instagram, or Four Square. We spend our time to check our social media. Social media provides a lot of feature to the user. We can share photo, chatting, or find a new friend. Some people use social media to sell their product. They can advertise, publish the photo, and get the customer. My friend, Azka uses social media to improve her business. She gets a lot of new customers. In the other side, social media also gives a bad effect. I made an observation to find the bad effect. Today, most of the people communicate with social media in the virtual world. As a human, we need to communicate in the real world. We can make an interaction between the speaker to the receiver. Let’s imagine! If we only use social media, we won’t find a real friend. So, we must use social media wisely. Please, manage your time to do another activity.
ReplyDeleteSocial medias are important, in order to keep you in touch with your relatives or friends when you move to some place far enough to reach. Or maybe for business like online shopping. It's maybe more convenient for buyers to shop online rather to go far from home to shopping mall just to buy a single blouse (although online shop owners don't have to pay for taxes and I personally think that it's not a very good choice).
ReplyDeleteBut the impact of having too much of social media time is very big. We often to pay our attentions only to mobile phones or tabs, not to the real person who literally wants to talk to you. I experienced it myself, when I paid too much attention for social media, tend to forget about my duties and obligations as a student. I admit that I didn't pay attention to my high school math teacher because I wall-to-wall my foreign friend in facebook, and I really do feel bad about it then and now, because I think when people really get excited about social media, they tend to forget that they have a real life, with real person, not walking time line (like on twitter, or path).
If you really want to express your feelings, it is okay to do it via social media. But we have the barrier and limitations too. If you think you're not comfortable to express your current feelings via social media, you still have many loving friends who will talk to you.
As long as paying attention at social medias won't affect your work, it's okay too. Our country will be very poor if the people keep on tweeting but not working. Although it also has positive side such as people in Indonesia start to recognize technology advances.
Human is a social creature, so they always want to stay connected with other people. Nowadays, in this globalization era, people can easily know what their friends are doing, thinking, eating, and even wearing. They can easily check their friends in Facebook, Twitter, Path, Instagram, Line and etc. “Everything is about friends and location”, In Path, people can “check-in” wherever they are, and with whom they are going. The more often they go to certain places, the more chances they will get to be in higher social status.
ReplyDeleteWell, it’s good to stay connected with others, but some people become addicted to social network and their gadgets. Sometimes, I see a group of people hangout in café or restaurant, but they’re not talking, they’re just sitting and playing with their smartphone or tablet. It’s because of the addiction from gadget and social network.
I’m afraid in couple of years it will become a habit for us to just play with our own gadgets, especially Indonesian people. And because of that, I always keep my parents’ and brother’s gadget in silent mode if we went to restaurant for dinner, so it won’t bothering us. Thank you for reading.
This article is actually so true in so many areas. As an Indonesian, I do have to admit that Indonesians are truly addicted to social media. I think this addiction actually started to show when smartphones started booming. Blackberry is actually the most common smartphone that almost everyone has in this country; I’ve even seen some drivers having a blackberry as well. Though iPhones, Samsung and tablets are a lot more seen being used nowadays, as blackberry seems to lower down.
ReplyDeleteWell to be honest I’m also one of them who follow this ‘trend’ of owning a blackberry and joining in on the social networks out there. Seeing from all my friends and surroundings that join in on social networks, it could be functioned for lots of things. It could before communicating, showing how ‘in trend’ you are, sharing your personal thoughts, and lots more. Though I still cant really figure out what is it that creates the total addiction to it.
I see the similarities between this article and the Indonesian people I already met.
ReplyDeleteBefore I went to Yogyakarta a lot of Indonesian people wants to invite me on Facebook while I never spoke to them. The first invitations I thought maybe they want to tell me something important about my study abroad. But after more and more invitations I stopped with accepting them. In our culture you accept friends on Facebook if you know that person. Because you share your personal life on Facebook and you don’t want to show it to the whole world.
Now I am for more than a month in Indonesia and recognize more similarities. When I meet the people from Facebook in person, I didn’t recognize them in the first place. Because they looked so different on the pictures then they looks in real life. Also you see every Indonesian always being busy with their phone. I even heard when an Indonesian goes out for dinner with somebody they have to make a picture of the person and post it to their friends.
But if I look to myself I also use my phone quite a lot because of the social media on my phone. Especially now when I am far away from home, I use my phone often to stay in contact with my friends in my home country.
Ever since the introduction of smart phones in Indonesia, the number of subscribers of social media has increase significantly. Cheap Internet service fees fuel it. Nowadays most people in Indonesia have at lease one facebook account registered to them. Some use it for social means, others use it as business means. Therefore many small to medium size businesses will likely to use social media as their marketing mix. Not only it is cheap but also many people have easy access.
ReplyDeleteI think there is another possible reason why social media is very commonly use is because it defies someone’s social status. For instance the number of primary students who has facebook account are increasing. They do not need social media to socialise with their friends, since they are in the same school. Also when a teenager does not have facebook account most of his/her friend will mock him and eventually he will become a social pariah. It sounds silly, but sometime the society is.
Also bigger companies could not make profit out of these people, because they only use social media so they are “exist” in the society.
Hence it is clear that social media decide whether you will stand in a community or not. As most people do not want to be an outcast, so they will follow the majority.
Social media in Indonesia has became a public needs and (maybe) neccessity. The title of this article reflects all about Indonesian people these days. People, especially teenagers, in Indonesia can’t leave 3 things in a day, that is eating, praying, and tweeting. I have to admit that Indonesians tweet or post on Facebook a lot. And sometimes, i do that too. When I have no tasks or when i just do nothing, I will check my Facebook or Twitter. And I have to admit again, that these habit is not a good thing, they make me doing something unnecessary. Beside of just connecting between people, in Indonesia, Facebook, Twitter, and other social medias, has doubled their function. People are using social media as a online shop. It is innovative, as we know that Facebook users in Indonesia is one of the biggest market. But, it sometimes turns to be annoying, all of us use social media of course to get connected to people or friends we know, but there are “online shops” who keep adding us, sending us messages, or mentioning us in Twitter. And yeah, this is Indonesia, where social media is becoming one of primary needs.
ReplyDeleteI really love the title. This trend begun when Blackberry was first introduced in Indonesia. I remember when I used Blackberry for the first time, when I was the only one who has it in school, I just it for SMS and Calls. Other software that I use is Yahoo! Messengers from Personal Computer (PC), because back then Yahoo! Messengers is the popular free-to-chat software. I rarely use the signature software of Blackberry, which is Blackberry Messenger or BBM in short, because my friends do not own or use Blackberry as their phone. But several years later, BBM becomes the main free-to-chat software in Indonesia because it is free, you can chat everywhere (unlike Yahoo! Messengers back then) and easy to use. Later on it becomes a necessity for Indonesian people because Blackberry becomes cheaper. Then Mobile company like Telkomsel, IM3 and XL starts their price war about giving the best internet services for Blackberry due to the necessity. It encourage the urge to Tweet, Path, post photo on Instagram and so on. I am not really interested to be active in social media, but someday I will have to because information spread so fast in it.
ReplyDeleteI think I’m the one of the typical Indonesian who tweet and post everything that just happened around me. Many Indonesian don’t know how to use the social media properly. Sometimes they just post everything that popped on their mind to facebook, twitter, or maybe on blackberry messenger. I used to post randomly and didn’t aware of my own privacy. But since two years ago, I started to think to delete my old facebook. Back in junior high school era, many students proud when they got a lot of friends in facebook. And I started to accept more request than usually I did. But then, I realized that my decision to follow the current trend was totally wrong. I deleted my facebook which filled with strangers and I made the new one and only accept my friends only. I was addicted to use blackberry messenger. My parents usually warn me when I give my attention only to my phone because It will make me not interact with the people around me. I just bought a new magazine and there’s an article about social media and the effect of using it too often. One of the effect of using social media stated in the article is people’s ability to focus will decreased. I personally agree that using social media make me hard to focus on things I do. For example, when I study I can’t stay away from my blackberry and I keep checking it every 20 minutes. I think I need to learn how to stay away from my phone step by step to focus better on things.
ReplyDeleteSince globalization came in this era, everything is free to access from the economic side, social, politic, culture, and many more. The social media appearance is one of many impacts of globalization in this era. Whether we like it or not, social media has become a huge part of our lives. In fact, it’s become so influential in many aspects. For example in our life, in our education, social, and may others aspects. Social media has some advantages and some disadvantages. Example for the advantages is because of social media we can know someone that we don’t know before or we can know people from other side of the world. And for the example of the disadvantages of the social media is we become busy with the social media and we don’t care about our real social life. In this era also, smartphone is very easy to get and there are many smartphones that not really expensive. With that smartphones people become busier with the social media.
ReplyDeleteI admit that social media is very additive. And I always open my social media (facebook, twitter, path, and etc) when I get bored. And I do the same thing as people do with their social media. I tweet when I’m sad, angry, happy, I check in with my path where I am at, I update my facebook status, and many more haha.
I think that this article is true and its also a good one. Nowadays Indonesians just can't live without social media. Some facts says that with over half of Indonesia’s internet users living outside major cities, mobile and online communications have the potential to play a huge role in the development of the country’s rural communities. This is why Indonesia is one of the country that uses social media the most. From day to day they always see themselves using social media such as twitter, facebook, intragram and etc. Its like they have been addicted to it. I'm also a user of social media but not that much adddicted, but I guess social media does have lots of benefits like making communication between people easier than before. The bad thing about this is people use it too much and thats not good. Some people often gets carried away with it and forget to do there activities. So, in that case you have to keep the balance between using social media and doing stuff in real life.
ReplyDeleteThis article seems so interesting. I agree with that! Nowadays people are really busy with their gadget. The use of social media is really mushrooming among the people. Everything’s about tweeting. I ate dinner with my mom three days ago, and I was busy with my gadget at that time, and suddenly she said “It seems like If you don't take any photo about what are you eating, and where are you at that time and post it on social media, it never happened. I guess that’s the modern law” and it makes me thought that it’s probably true. The modern social life also makes people which far each other become closer, but it makes people which closer each other become far because they’re busy with their gadget. Social media doesn't give not only the drawbacks, but also it gives us so many advantages, especially in communication. It makes us easier to do the communication. Therefore, I think we should balance between real life and social media life, so it will decrease the drawbacks that may occur.
ReplyDeleteIndonesian people are truly the kings and queens of social media. They became one of the most users of Facebook and Twitter, made the mobile data contracts become really, really cheap compared to those of Vodafone and T-mobile, and even managed to turn the Blackberry's market, which was first actually intended for business executive, to the 'highly social' teenagers for goodness' sake.
ReplyDeleteIt also amazes me how Indonesian could manage to use so many social media and chat applications at once. It is unsurprising if someone eventually asks you to add his Facebook, Twitter, and maybe 10 other kinds of social app. It's also common for Indonesians to add and/or approve the 'friendship' request of people they barely even know.
I also agree with Dinah's opinion regarding the Indonesian people needing to have a 'second life'. Indonesians often abuse the internet anonimity either by being 'overly expressive' (alay), bullies, or social abusers on the social media (which are often called 'trolling') even though they are no longer little children.
Well, this article kinda attract me. I was a social media maniac before (well, I'm a bit too much here, but kinda true). I was very attracted to the internet for the first time. I get to know internet since I was in the 6th grade. My friend took me to Warnet (Warung Internet: a place where you pay for internet access, and are providing computers, paid by how many hours you are using the internet). And she told me how to make Friendster (Facebook's twins, I think). Starting from there, I was kind of addicted to the internet.
ReplyDeleteThen, I made twitter (couple years after twitter was launched, on 2010 precisely) and start to TWEET. Tweeting is like sending a SMS. But, the difference is, everyone can read what you have post. And everyone use the follow button to follow someone's activity. It was actually time wasting. I admit, that i have waste quite lot time on twitter, which now i decide to not using it too much. And it is true, that Indonesians are on the top rank of the most active internet user. Actually, Indonesians, have to be careful in posting something on the internet, since they are the most active internet user.
The reality of people getting addicted with social networks is a result from the growth of technology and globalization. Gradually, it changes people mindset. People start to think that they have to be a part of the growth of technology to keep being existed. Naturally, people do not want to be different from others. And that perception will keep progressing.
ReplyDeleteIn industry side, this addiction turns out as a great business potential as well as communication network. When it comes to the industry, the goods or services will keep growing. The rapid demands and innovations will continue to grow because people would never be satisfied. Thus, smartphone and social networks become a life style. People will always try to adjust. However, it goes back to each of our own purposes, either to build personal capacity or just gleefully following the trend.
Personally I realize, ever since I started using smartphone I tend to waste my time playing it. While we are having a quality time in my family, we are not suppose to holding any gadgets in order to keep the conversations among us alive. Everything that too much is not good.
This article remind me with the video about social media revolution in youtube (this is the link for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUCfFcchw1w). I got amazed with the fact in that video because I never think the social media could impact that great to all of the people around the world. Then what makes me surprise yet scary is Indonesia has a great role in the social media revolution because in this article said that Indonesia is world’s second-largest market for facebook and the third-largest for twitter. Whereas, there is no office of facebook or twitter in Indonesia.
ReplyDeleteI’m wondering what the main reason or the background is that makes Indonesian could have that position in social media. Is it because social media suits with the most Indonesian’s character: like to publish their personal life and not really think privacy as a serious problem? If it’s yes so I think we can see this case with the economy’s eye. This case is like a meeting between demand and supply; where there is demand therewill come the supply. Indonesian needs media to distribute their enjoyment in publishing their life or other things and then social media become the answer of the demand. In other words, social media is the supply.
Social media in Indonesia has play their role, even many people in Indonesia are very attracted and they cannot live without social media. Indonesian has become the most users of the top social media, say it like Twitter, Facebook,and now Indonesia has about 3million users in Path.
ReplyDeleteI admit that social media has influence our lifestyle, because it also happens to me. I know how it feels without open a social media jut a one day period, and I was like more curious about what had happened, what had my friends did or upload,and etc. We know everything has their negative and positive effects, so we must be wise in using the social media. Many people are now abuse the social media for lets say like bullying,and it is not right. Many people are in conflict, or fight, just because social media. We have to take the positive effect, how? We can use it for keep contact with our relatives, Indonesia cosists of many archipelagos and maybe we have many relatives who live far away from us, so we can use social media for keep on contact. We can also use it as a tool in business, like we use it for marketing the products. So there is no problem regarding the growth of social media especially in Indonesia, just depends on how we use it.
Well I think Indonesians are too addicted to social media. They probably cannot live happily without having a social media account. This happens because of the spread of globalization. By having social media accounts, the world seems to be a narrow place. We can easily communicate with people who live in a different cities or maybe countries. The world seems so small by having social media accounts. This also facilitates for small business owners to run their businesses. Online shopping has become one of the favourite ways for shopping. Probably, almost all Indonesians who get internet connection, have twitter accounts. One of the famous twitter accounts, Footy_jokes-an account that mocks football teams-, has 90% followers from Indonesia. This may occur because Indonesians have a fanaticism for football, and Indonesians also love mockery. We can’t deny the fact that we cannot live without smartphones which have social media features in them. We cannot stand of not checking twitter or path for hours. Well social media has its positive and negative effects that we already know. Something that is too much is not good. So we have to have the right amount of addiction to social media
ReplyDeleteI was so interested with this article, “Eat,Pray,Tweet” it was so describe what usually Indonesian teenagers in this era.
ReplyDeleteWhen the first time Indonesia was reached with Internet, Internet was used as source of anything. Its just like if you want to find out something you should launch your browser and you find anything. Internet can called such as god of knowledge.
But maybe for the last 15 years when there are some applications that can connect every people in the world called social media, many people that most of them was teenagers is launch that application.
Now, most of them launch internet just to launch social media that they have to keep exist in their social network. For example by using social media I still keep contact with all my friends and family in Jakarta that away from Yogyakarta which is town that I lived for reach my bachelor’s degree. In my opinion technology is so important but depend we used it
I see a lot of dangers in using Facebook too often. People are only social with each other on social media. Since I joined the semester abroad Facebook-page, I almost doubled my friendlist on Facebook. Indonesians are not afraid to add you as a friend, but when you see them in real life, they barely say something.
ReplyDeleteA remarkable cultural difference I experienced is that when I went to a public place, like boshe for example, I will get at least 5 new friend requests from people that I don’t know. I always ask; hi, do I know you? And then they reply; “haha oh no, I just saw you once at Boshe”. I am fine with that, it is always nice to meet new people. However in the Netherlands we usually don’t do that. Only maybe if you saw a girl you liked but didn’t got the guts to approach her.
I do agree with the title of this article “eat, pray tweet”. I almost always see the people around me that hold their phone every time just for making status on their twitter, or Facebook, or maybe other social media that I don’t know. They make the status not only in the spare time. For example in the restaurant, I usually see the family that having dinner in family time but they hold their own phone, smartphone, or maybe tab, also the parent. I think the most users of social-media are teenagers. They post every moment in their social-media, like the taking-picture of food today, or maybe about the boyfriend that just ended the relationship, etc. However, the old people use social-media network too and active in making their status or just open their social-media to look other status. I don’t really understand about this era trend, especially for Indonesian. They like to use social-media to communicate each other. It will make people passive in their real life. Let’s sign out from your social-media for a moment and find many beautiful things that more useful than making status in social-media.
ReplyDelete“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots”. This is a famous quote stated by Albert Einstein. He envisions the future where kinds of technology will make us either lazy, or generally stupid for ignoring the people around us.
ReplyDeletePeople in Indonesia absolutely love using social media as a platform to communicate. Basically it brings us closer to people who are far from us, but it also draws us from the people who are present from us. It’s interesting to see the condition of the world right know. We tend to text away in our phones rather than conducting conversation with friends and families around us. This doesn’t only happen in Indonesia, but all over the world.
I remember times when everyone buys Blackberry’s only to have the Blackberry Messenger. It’s more convinient to chat, and most importantly it’s free. We constantly change our social media websites or applications. Look back and remember all the chatting sites we used. MSN, eBuddy, Friendster, Facebook, Path, Line. Indonesians always have the urge to show everyone what they are doing, what they are eating at this very moment, and also creating a better version of ourselfs online. This doesn’t only occur in teenagers, but also adults. They love communicating with friends who they’ve lost contact over the years. I think it’s okay to use social media, but use it appropriately and try not to neglect the people around you.
Social media refers to the means of interactions among people in which they create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas in virtual communities and networks. Nowdays many people addicted to the smartphone and a lot application in their gadget to use check-in at every moment. Actually, Indonesian teenagers like using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Path, Line, and many more. Not only do teenagers use social media, but parents also use social media for their needs. If we communicate with other people whise distance is so far we should use social media like smartphone or another application. Now, if we look in the business side that social media is used for selling their product, its like publishing the photo, then explain the things that sell, find the customer as you can and get the customer. In modern era like now, the social media is one tool easy to help communicate with other. But, and some people think that social media bring many bad effects, but if you ask me that when I use social media only for purposes that are good and useful.
ReplyDeleteThe power of internet connection is increasing from time to time. Along with the high technology offered right now, accessing social media is very easy. In Indonesia, especially, social media has become a major habit and a part of everyday’s life. Like any other issue, there are pro and contra. However, the use of social media in Indonesia is becoming a really hot issue and interest thing to discuss. Indonesia is one in of the top 5 Twitter user in the whole world based on this site: http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-top-countries_b2672. In my opinion, the booming of social media helps a lot in advertising and sales in business area. In business, for example, online shopping has become a major habit to some people. The owner of the business doesn’t even need to rent a place. It makes a quite lot profit to the business as the customer is paying the shipment of the product. However, the tendency of people in using social media is making it to a contra side. A lot of people tend to publish their life virtually. Thus, privacy has lost. Not to forget to mention the high criminal issue about fake identity and cyber-bullying in social media.
ReplyDeleteAs an Indonesian, I confess that I am one of that ‘eat, pray, tweet’ person. Since I have my smart phone (it was about 2 years ago), I always check on my phone if it is blinking or not. Even though it is not blinking, I open my phone just to check the social media I have. Like checking my friends’ tweet in the twitter, or checking my friends’ status in the facebook. Every morning when i wake up, the first thing i do is checking my phone whether it has notification or text. It is annoying when i find a new text and it is actually from the cellular provider. I cannot be separated from my smart phone, especially when i go somewhere. Somehow i feel something is missing when my smart phone is not in my hand. Also my smart phone can avoid awkward moment. For example, when i am walking alone or sitting alone waiting for my friend, at least i have something to do when i hold my smart phone. Whether it is for playing games, or just checking the social media. That is my opinion about the importance of smart phone.
ReplyDeleteIn this modern era, people can communicate easily. Nowadays, people usually use smartphones. There are a lot of application or social media in the smartphone, especially in communication. For example facebook, twitter, path, line, kakao talk, whatsapp, and many more. By these communication applications, it feels like the people around the world can connected easily.
ReplyDeleteIn Indonesia, it is very easy to find the smartphones. You can choose whether you want the cheap or the expensive one, with the almost same application especially in social media. The flooding of smartphones makes Indonesia becomes one of the largest market in the world. The flooding of smartphones causes the flooding of the social media users from Indonesia.
The young generations of Indonesia, especially the teenagers, usually have the social media account. But, as I read in the article, they prefer use the “fake” profile picture instead of the real one. They always update their status on facebook or twitter as much as they could.
In my opinion, social media is very important. Because, it can make us stay connected or even keepin touch with our friends around the world. By the social media, we can know the hottest news around the world from the trending topics. But, it also has the negative side, especially for those who can not use it wisely. The example of the negative sides of social media are the increase of criminalities, the increase of harassment, and so on. In conclusion, the good or the bad effects of social media is all depend on the users. So use the social media wisely, and you can get a lot of advantages from it.
In Indonesia we tend to accept many trendy that evolve in the world, we mostly always accept social network that have been offered in Indonesia. Many social company realize that Indonesia have very big potential to be online country, they see that many young people in Indonesia already have their own smartphone. For example like line, what's app, facebook, twitter, and many social media in Indonesia growing rapidly, this is because in Indonesia many young people consider about making many friend is important, and it will be easy if they can use social media as the way to have many friends.
ReplyDeleteIn Indonesia I admit that it will quite difficult for social media company earn big profit, because in Indonesia we love everything by lower price even we more if we can get it by free. So it was a very great idea to make virtual economic, so the company still can earn profit from the service that they offer. But actually there was still a problem about virtual market, in Indonesia IT is growing rapidly, so cracking just the same that many paid product will become free because hacker in Indonesia do their job nicely.
This article caught my attention right from the beginning, I think it’s true that Indonesian are most likely to spend their times in social media, even though Indonesia is a country where the majority of its population are Muslim, Indonesian tend to be socially active. I think the increase of smartphone and thee decrease of its price affecting our social habit, from my personal experience I tend to take a picture and share it in social media or check-in on path. In my opinion, today’s leading social media are line, path, twitter, and facebook. Every one of it has its own function and we tend to use it differently. For example in path, it limits our friends to only 150 people and it makes people think twice before adding someone who they don’t really know. The increasing of social media usage in Indonesia is making a difference in our social life, right now we don’t need to visit someone or call them if we want to know where they are or what are they doing, we just need to line them or check their path, but the effect is it decrease our personal contact with people around us.
ReplyDeleteWow what an interesting article Adrian, but it sounds a little bit sarcastic don’t u think? “ Eat, Pray, Tweet”. As the technology has become more modern and modern, I believe that most of the people nowadays owned a smart phone. I got myself a smartphone too, which is something that I can’t let go. I frequently check my phone to see a new updates from my social media accounts like Twitter or Facebook and sometimes to chat with my friends on Line, Whatsapp, and so on. It’s become a bad habit actually, because sometimes I spend my free time to check my phone or maybe scrolling down my Twitter timeline rather than to study or to do something productive. Back to the topic, actually it’s a common thing that I found in Twitter or Instagram. People always updates about something personal in Twitter and sometimes I found people who is complaining about how hard their life is. It’s kind of funny to read their tweets because sometimes it’s nonsense. This makes me thinks about how unproductive are Indonesian people is, they can only share about their current condition or thoughts but they did nothing in their real life besides complaining.
ReplyDelete"Wow what an interesting article Adrian, but it sounds a little bit sarcastic don’t u think? “ Eat, Pray, Tweet”."
ReplyDeleteYes you may be right, Heijin. However, if you bear in mind the fact that it's a play on words... specifically, the name of a very successful book [and film], then we could perhaps describe it as 'playful' or 'ironic', rather than 'sarcastic'. It isn't meant to offend; remember, "Eat, Pray, Love" was partly set in Indonesia.
Sad isn’t it?
ReplyDeleteBut, this is what happened in Indonesia right now. Before go to Masjid, they tweet it first, before going to eat they instagram it first, before doing something, they post it first in facebook. It looks like everything you want to do is must be on the internet. When actually, IT DOESN’T!
There is some funny people that post in facebook that they are pray for Idul Adha day. Isn’t that what you call arrogant? If you want to pray, just pray! You didn’t need to publish it in the internet. God knows that you are praying. You didn’t need to post in on facebook, or twitter to tell god that you are praying!
This kind of thing is really piss me off. And some of their post is using a sarcastic languages that they who didn’t go to pray is the friend of the devil or whatever that is. Well, did you look to yourself? Bragging your pray to god in the internet is not something good.
Wow, I just realized that almost 30 m Indonesian’ facebook accounts are still considered to be less than 20% of Indonesia's population who are connected to the Internet. What would happen if ALL Indonesian people without exception are connected to the Internet? Maybe the government will buy Facebook and even Twitter. For me, it is quite large, even more than 40% of Indonesia's population connected to the Internet. I think the statistic is wrong, personally. Due to the population in remote areas and with whichever mobile devices they are even connected with facebook. Perhaps in the assumption of large society, Facebook = the Internet, and perhaps because of the influence of the emerging mobile provider advertisements promote facebook, even to label "if you do not have a facebook account, you are not “gaul” or trendy" so that nearly 30 billion facebook account entirely from Indonesia. A huge business opportunity for social media business owner, but they said it is difficult to obtain as much money as they want. Indeed, to issue a purchase with a credit card, not all Indonesian people have a credit card, isn’t it? Converting dollars to Indonesia may be the main cause, since the exchange rate of the dollar against Rupiah is significant and there are many Indonesian people are lazy to spend money just for the particular application. Indonesia's economic situation is also not as advanced, developed as the United States, and if they (the owner or CEO of social media) decrease application’s price and converts it into IDR (Rupiah), perhaps socmed users will buy it. A great opportunity to do business, just let they adapt to Indonesian economy. An interesting article!
ReplyDeleteTweeting is a matter of habit. Before smartphones invented, i usually spent my time with my friends chatting, or having me-time to draw, cook, play games, do sports, etc. but when I got a smartphone, I started to spend my time more on it. Creating statuses, checking people’s, tweeting and pretend like I’m a super-wise-person on internet. But maybe this habit is just another segment of our live, trying new things. Many people up until now still spend their time on social media that brought by smartphones. But me? I already pass that stage of my life. I’d rather do something else than watching the twitter timeline over and over again. Well, I’m still tweeting, but not as rapidly as everybody else. Mostly just to keep in touch with my friend, or put some of my mind to timeline just to inspire whoever read it.
ReplyDeleteWhat I thought on Indonesian people who put their large portion of their time onto their smartphones is just because they don’t know what else they could do, and it became a habit.
This article represents Indonesia’s condition lately especially with the teenager itself. Now everyone is busy with their own smartphone, tablet, etc. Honestly, it quite hard right now if we far from our smartphone or gadget because there are so many things that we can do through our smartphone. For example we can know everything that happen surrounds us and we can do a video call with our old friends even if we separated thousands miles away. And also there are so many social media available for our smartphone, for example Twitter, Facebook, Path, Foursquare, and Instagram. I think the most popular social media among teenagers is Path. This social media allow us to check in a place where we are visiting, and also allow us to insert photo. With this kind of technology, we have to be wise about the usage itself. Don’t use it too much because we have to socialize more, and lately people don’t understand the importance of direct socialization.
ReplyDelete“Eat, pray, tweet”
ReplyDeleteMy facebook account is only for people I know of while my twitter account is for those accounts which shares the same interests as mine or if I find their tweets interesting. I addicted to twitter and I am not going to deny this. Even when I was in church I would scroll down my timeline.
I ate, I tweeted. I prayed, I tweeted.
“People love publicity, don’t fret much about privacy and gleefully follow trends.”
I know right? People would go as far as telling something they do not supposed to tell. Like for example if their parents were throwing tantrums against each other or if one had a difficulty to defecate……………
“Everything is about friends and location”
True. One of social networking that is booming recently is Path. You could update your location and also what are you watching right now, or listening, or reading. You could also make it to sleep mode and wake-up mode, etc. It is very interesting, I think.
Social media in Indonesia.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the info that I got from another article. 63 million peoples in Indonesia is already know how to use Internet and 95% from them are only access the social network sites such as Facebook, twitter, Path and many more popular social network sites. I would like to tell you a bit about my habit with a smartphone. I probably was included on 63 million peoples in Indonesia that used Internet and only accesses a social network sites. Wherever I am, if I am holding my smartphone, I always open my social media like Path, Blackberry Messenger, Line, Twitter, etc. It is only to see what are the new updates from my friends. Sometimes it is a bit not important for me but I like to see it. On the other side, I feel that I have to do something that has benefits for me. Remember, we are still a college student, so we have a responsibility to manage our time not only playing with our smartphones, but study must be the first priority to do.
Social media in Indonesia is so popular these days, Twitter, Path, Facebook, Instagram and many more social media application that used by Indonesian people. I think these kind of social media bring to all of us good and bad things. The good thing is you can connect with your friend or anyone who's not in reachable places so you can get connect with them with this social media. But the bad thing is you are not really interacting with others because we are usually ignoring people around us when we are social meda-ing. For example, when I'm hangout with my friends, usually we made a rule that we shouldn’t use our phone to make our hangouts be like hangouts like talk to each other's or sharing our story or experience. Because someone started to use his/her phone, everybody will start to take their phone and start to ignore each other. That’s bad isn’t it?
ReplyDeleteHahaha social media in indonesia, it is a very interesting topic. Because as we all know that indonesian people like to use social media. We know that from the fact that indonesian people is in the fifth place in the amount of twitter user. And number two for the statistics in facebook users. Using twitter in indonesia is like a habit, for example like if someone want eat, they tweet. They want to go to bed they tweet. It is very annoying because people in indonesia tend to tweet anything, and it is annoying. And one of the most annoying phenomena in social media is, instagram. For example a person shoot his food and then post it in the instagram. i mean what purpose that he or she that take picture of the food. It is very annoying. Indonesia people tend to be excessive in using this social media. Okay i think that is all of my opinion. thanks
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