Universities Today

 There are 166 universities in the United Kingdom -  currently there are 3 Vice Chancellors in a British university with a South Asian background.

1.  Leceister Uni  - Nishan Canagarajah.

2.  Kings College London - Shitij Kapur.

3.  Canterbury Christ Church University  - Rama Thirunamachandran

The only VC in Britain with an East Asian background is Max Lu of the University of Surrey, who has recently been appointed by the University of Wollongong NSW in Australia as its new VC.

There are 43 universities in Australia.  No one with a South Indian background has been appointed a VC in this Antipodes nation.

No non ethnic Malays have served as VC of any university in Malaysia.

No non ethnic Chinese currently serve as a University VC in Singapore.

There are eight universities in New Zealand with no VCs of Asian origin.
Damon Salesa of Samoan origin is the current VC of the Auckland University of Technology.

In Canada, Mohamed Lachemi serves as VC of the Toronto Metropolitan Univsrsity.
Deep Saini is VC of McGill University and is of Punjabi origin.  There are around 100 universities across Canada.

Across the Australian university sector, there is an obvious under representation of females as Vice-Chancellors.

Are VC roles supposed to reflect the mores and uniqueness of each society?
Or are they increasingly chosen for abilities in corporate management, strategic leadership and financial
prowess, as higher educational instutitions become more of competitive
behemoths obsessed with research rankings, easy student revenues and corporate growth?

Universities do not pay tax and are inherently community entities to start with, originally meant to serve the ideals of education, inspiring thinking, academic growth and embedding benefits from society ideals.   They have now grown to be jaggernauts which can prioritise high level commercialisation over those of teaching, learning and student experience.

Universities are not accountable to shareholders and yet now operate like commercial entities.   The equivalent of a corporate Board can be in University Councils, whose members should be a broad based demographic but increasingly stacked with political aspirations and corporatised vibes.

There are universities burdened and yet enriched with historical traditions.   There are universities which carry the torch of enlightenment and innovativeness in ages of oppression, extremism and backwardness.   Universities are best when they develop the minds and behaviours of progress and reform for the larger society outside their campuses.
Our contemporary age has never seen so many numbers attending university.

Yet universities can be held captive by the overwhelming control of geopolitics.   Donations for such institutions are significantly important, whether in knowledge, finance or human effort.   Universities do not stand alone well by themselves, but are best to serve when they have a collective will and purpose to advance the course of continuing human civilisation.

#yongkevthoughts

The Titanic

 That Titanic sank in the North Atlantic more than 110 years ago in 1914.

Do ponder which contemporary entity, corporate, government, institution or so called leader may or surely flounder for the very same reasons the Titanic sank, after hitting the side of an iceberg.

1.   Touted as Unsinkable.
The over sensationalisation of an idea, product, agenda and promise should ring alarm bells like a canary in a coal mine.
Advertisements that shout,  social media clips that insists what we need to have and promises of remarkable returns on your money need to be treated with more than a grain of salt and reminder to protect our integrity and use our own confident intelligence.


2.    Speeding Irregardless of Risks in order to achieve a subjective important goal.
It has been said the tragic Titanic was on a secret agenda to arrive in New York a day earlier than scheduled, in a surprise move to impress and awe.  This over riding plan, hidden from passengers and crew, was an obsession with the powerful controlling individuals who were willing to do anything and take risks to achieve a rather unshared objective.

Have you encountered situations where any costs are to be expended just to attain one overriding purpose, whether as personally experienced or read in the annals of history?

Suicide missions by brainwashed individuals.   Customers treated as disposable numbers in the push to achieve pushy sales.  Financial claims to be minimised while collected premiums are maximised.    Prices to spike when customers are desperate.  Priorities to maximise share price and earnings at a specific time of reporting to the Board and key shareholders.


3.    Quality had not been maintained or ensured in the weakest spots.
The strength of anything, man made or in Nature, is truly in the weakest joints.
The Titanic had poorer quality iron in the parts that critically held its bottom.
It is not clear if this was due to a rush in its construction or because the funding was running out and corners had to be practicallly cut.

What are the obvious and hidden risks of a used business process?
Is government running on outsourced and expensively paid contracts, rather than on building a long lasting store of key experience and knowledge?
Is society's progress hindered by too much politicking rather than viable investment and steady implementation?
Is personal health hijacked by addictions, over commercialisation and dubious medication?
Are critical assets of a nation owned by foreigners?


4.      Burning fires within the hold was already happening, even if no iceberg was crashed into.
Were there already inherent problems brewing for some time within an entity before its inevitable collapse?
Is the product sold subject to temporary demand trends, a passing fad or on the basis of unsustainable logic?
Is the sentiment for a following dependent on other factors rather than on a solid reasoning or philosophy?
Is the market for a service built on fear, fool's logic or sheer fantasy?


5.    Tilting of the structure was so quick.
The Titanic did not take long to go under the ocean after it scrapped past a giant iceberg.   The cosmetics of the large cruising behemoth thoroughly hid the high dangers of collapse and breakage in an unexpected tragedy, as there was much smoke, glitter and hype on mostly unimportant diversions to paying passengers.

Would a pyramid like business structure hasten its collapse in a tragic economic event?
Is a political party carved out of a lack of relevant leadership long due to fall like a illusionary house of meaningless cards?
Is a construction company depending on too much debt, decreasing cash flows and falling ability to complete promised projects on time?

6.   The threat of the iceberg that broke the Titanic was not clearly seen in a possible mirage to the ship's crew.
A black swan event that breaks the so called camel's back is a risk scenario agreed upon as highly unlikely to happen, but when it eventuates in reality, no one is prepared to salvage from the disaster.
Unexpected cut off from supplies, dependent labour and breakout of trade wars all ravage anyone's capacity and ability to carry out viable operations.
A once in a hundred years of a climate disaster, a loss of a huge market due to unexpected geopolitical quakes and a war that was normally thought to not ever likely to occur.
A serious health issue that makes other problems not significant.


#yongkevthoughts

The Southern Hemisphere

 Living in the Antipodes has its quirks and pecularities.

Most of the action is dominated by the Northern Hemisphere.  South of the Equator seems to imply something less, suggestive of secondary.   We have lesser populations, especially across the Indian and Pacific Oceans.   Even our land masses are perceived to have just mountains and forests like in the Andes and in parts of Africa.  The mystery loved by adventurers hangs around thick and alluring in South America and Africa.   Two of the most risky capes to sail past in the age of colonialism were the Cape of Good Hope and the Tierra de Fuego.

Geopolitics, technology advances,
finance, trade, arnaments and medical fields can be dominated by the big players in the European Union, Russia, China and the United States.  All north of the Equator.  

The critical air links and shipping routes all compete more in the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Malacca Straits, South China Sea, Panama Canal, the Carribean, the Baltic and the North Atlantic.   The vastness and large distances of the South Pacific between Chile and New Zealand already prove to be barriers.   And I dare not reflect the  challenges in the wide ocean between Perth and Durban - I can only think of the secret USA military base at Diego Garcia.

South America in the past 100 years gives me the perception and impression of being a hotbed of revolution, dictatorship and violent change of ruling governments. I must not generalise, for each society and its history do have circumstances and conditions that create their own geopolitical path.

South Africa was strongly condemned by the United Nations as an apartheid state before the arrival of Mandela.   Australia has a whites first policy before it was dismantled by Gough Whitlam. 

The vast waters in the Southern Hemisphere  do provide so much for sea creatures, weather patterns and romanticised cruise travel.   On the negative side, the South Pacific attracted French government nuclear testing - as did the Australian mainland, by British and USA interests.

Time differences are not caused by being in the south or north.  These human measurement systems agreed internationally to bring order to the human world do mean that while London is starting a new day, Sydney is going to bed.  Events in the USA happen a day before New Zealand regarding calendar date.   However, Cape Town is the same time zone as Berlin - and Rio is only an hour ahead of New York.

Air routes tend to be more over oceans, rather than land, when you venture below the Equator.   There are more islands as you cross over the Indonesian Archipelago.  There is more emptiness seemingly as you fly over the oceans.   On the other hand, one can be captivated by the dry deserts over Australia, the lush forests or grasslands of Africa and the high peaks of the Andes.

Institutions of higher education below the Equator are generally ranked below the top universities sited above that geographical line.

The Indigenous of Southern lands and waters have had tumultous historical times since the arrival of the sailing ships from Europe.   Almost the whole non- European world was colonised in rapid succession from the 16th to 20th centuries ( exceptions were Japan, huge parts of inland China, Thailand and Ethopia).  The Australian continental island with around 200 Aboriginal nations was declared "terra nullius" by the first British stepping foot at Sydney Cove.

The Maoris in Aotearoa fought back against the colonists in a most vehement manner.   Natives across southern Africa were challenged by the technical superiority, agricultural transformations and better weaponry of the European arrivals.  The allure of gold, a falling Inca Empire and the resources in South America spurred on the Spanish conquerors.

The lands of the Southern Hemisphere all had gold mining rushes, echoing the richness of its topography which can still provide hidden resources.  European dictated agricultural practices were imposed in Australia to the disregard of native traditions.

People from Europe brought infections and diseases to the Southern Hemisphere in the period of colonisation.  

Flora and fauna come foremost to mind in the Southern Hemisphere. A striking example is the variety as studied by Joseph Banks as he sailed on the Cook voyages.

The ways of best managing the environment  in the Antipodes were challenged by the mindset of the colonisers to bring and implement their previous template and practices to their new world.  Australia, New Zealand and Argentina were strongly viewed to serve aa food growing resources.  Foreign plants and animals were introduced with short sighted reasons

The Koala population is strongly decimated in Nww South Wales.  

Quietness, especially at night, can bring forth a rather special charm when one is in the country areas outside cities and towns across the Southern Hemisphere.  I reckon this can be experienced as well in the depths of the Eurasian continent, the Canadian Tundra and in the forests of Europe.

So far, the horror of war conflict, civillian collateral damage and destructive arnaments has not been as much as in the Northern Hemisphere - bar around the South Pacific in the 1940s, where the USA navy gained stature in Australian eyes.  New Guinea was also a scene of intense physically close fighting between the troops of the Japanese Imperial Army and those of the Allies.  South America was spared much of the horrors of the two World Wars in the 20th century - but then became the refuge of Nazi escapees from war torn Europe.

Clearer skies at night are a delight and privilege in the Southern Hemisphere.
Due to less population and fewer of bright cities, it is easier to see a passing comet or let our eyes better appreciate the millions of sparkling stars of the Universe.
The atmosphere can be more refreshingly felt due to less pollution and more natural winds.

When societal disruption broke out in the Northern Hemisphere, due to war, discrimination and displacements of people, South America, Australia and New Zealand became places of refuge and attraction to start a life all over again.
Such migrants brought their unique cultures, philosophies, culinary and systems to their newly adopted countries.

Australia seems to still be a land where her migrants of various religions and background come from over 200 separate foreign nations.  Her Indigenous are also the world's oldest continuing civilisation.

#yongkevthoughts

Looking at War

 Which countries have always waged war for a long time now since the middle of the 20th century? 

The United States of America has chalked up the most in number of wars participated, starting with the Korean Peninsular War in the early 1950s.  An ironic fact is that such military episodes have never taken place on homesoil in mainland America. 

The USA military and government have mostly dabbled themselves and their arnaments in the Middle East - Libya, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Yemen and Lebanon come to mind.    The cauldron of aggression, conflict, geopolitical tensions and social disorder sparked off by the establishment of the state of Israel have seen fights with her neighbours.  And the USA government is a dominant supporter of Israel.

The Cold War turned out to be varying degrees of heightened tensions, a game of high stakes who will blink first  and almost shaving near close encounters of military outbreaks.   The main protagonists were the Soviet Union and the USA, with the circle of accompanying allies.

The break up of the Federation of Yugoslavia in the 1990s arose from long brewing domestic differences.  United Nations sent personnel to be involved in the intracacies and complexities, thereby causing foreign troops to step in a stage beset with the divide between Eastern and Western Europe.

The Falklands Isles in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean witnessed the determination of Margaret Thatcher and Britain to not let a strategic colonial outpost be lost.  The confrontation with Argentina could have been the last fought battle of the British Empire's military tradition.

New Zealand has not experienced military mayhem domestically since the wars of attrition between the Maoris and the British colonists in thd early 19th century, leading to the Treaty of Waitangi.

Contemporary India and Pakistan have had limited skirmishes - and so have India and China on the Himalayan border, plus that between Vietnam and China.  China's last major war participation has been in the Korean Peninsular in a proxy conflict between Communists and capitalists.

Which European nations have not gone into battle since the end of World War 2?
Amazingly, most of the European continent has undergone peaceful political processes under the advent of the EU.  The Ukraine question escalated in the third decade of the 21st century with still an unresolved and continuing military conflict.  Historical fears and sentiment still run through the instinctive geopolitics of the European continent.

Most continents have never been invaded by foreign powers since the end of the colonialism period.   " Invasion"  these days can be more in the form of commercialism, soft power, financial domination, technology advancement and trade prowess, rather than in physical military wars.  However, colonies, albeit of small size, still exist around the world - we reflect on the possesions by the French in the South Pacific.  On the other hand, large nations like Canada and Australia still have Governor-Generals representing the ultimate authority of the British Monarch over their lands.

Which contemporary nations have somehow retained their viable independence amidst the rolling waves of human tribal conflict and war?  Thailand and Ethopia were never colonised when most of the world were.

Which nation has often joined others in warfare, and in the name of the another country leading the war, despite of almost never being attacked before?  Australia, India, New Zealand and Canada had sacrificed many in the war effort led by Britain and the USA since the beginning of the 20th century.

Which region of the world has attracted the most invaders in modern times since 1945?   Perhaps it is the Middle East.
Evolving disorders have broken out domestically in societies there  as a consequence of dictatorships, religious based groups, people's revolutions and interference by foreign governments.

Central Africa had its share of turbulence
due to economic inequity, warlord dominancs, burgeoning populatons and claims over resources.   War has even been declared between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969 over the results of a football match in Central America.

All nations in South east Asia have been attacked and invaded by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War 2.  Which nations in present day ASEAN have managed to experience predominant lack of warfare since then?

Singapore, Brunei, the Phillippines, the Federation of Malaysia and Thailand have been fortunate to not have serious epispdes of warfare in recent history.   Indonesia had battles in Irian Jaya (western half of Papua New Guinea) and when fighting the Portuguese ruled Timor-Leste in the latter's war for independence.

Indo-China was quagmired in atrocious warfare as the Communists fought intense nationalistic struggles in Vietnam and Laos.  Kampuchea was taken over by a cruel regime under Pol Pot.  Myanmar continues under military rule and its central government fights the armies of several different ethnic groups in major portions of the country, apart from facing rebellions within the Burmese cohort.

What lies for the near future in the 21st century?   Will ideology continue to stir up the masses?  Are democratic styled elections a sham subject to manipulation, misinformation and huge monies controlled by a few individuals?  Will conflicts still arise because of significant fights over trade and resources?  Will the ideal human values overwhelm the human tribal instinct to fight?

The quality of specific leaders who hold the upper hand in world affairs can be so important.   Do politicians choose between the welfare of their human denizens and the tempting short term way to massive business opportunities and wealth?  The core generation of voters can decide the path but powerful people can pull the puppet strings.   War has always been waged by older politicians making use of younger people to do the actual fighting.

#yongkevthoughts

The On Screen Electronic Divide

 It has been like trampling through the jungle.

Accounts, apps, email addresses, websites and more cry out for your passwords.   Some insist on a specific set of characters, caps, punctuation and numbers.  The more careful entities do a two factor authentication.   Airlines and banks provide electronic fingermark access.  Others send a one time use six digit pin to your nominated mobile telephone number.

And yet the fraudsters and scammers are lurking in the bush.

Out in the wild world are people using online love lures.  Victims usually have not met their scam better half in person face to face - and depend on messages, electronic photos and online voices.  I am confused, don't you think you want to feel a budding lover in the flesh first in any serious relationship?

There may be a rising tendency for on screen commercial transactions to avoid meeting the other side.  We are not interested to meet the cook in our food deliveries.  We get our payments from human beings we are not interested to know.   So many consumers only interact with the middle broker or deliverer - or maybe not.  Even parcels are just left at your nominated place and the deliverer simply takes a photograph of where he or she left it.

House recipients put up front door cameras with apps on phones.   Gone are the days that we get a chance to chat with service people.   Is it because human beings are so entangled with other things that they cannot wait for a delivery?   Yet we patiently wait for the arrival of the plumber, electrician, gardener and tradie.

There used to be someone home to receive things.   Now they can go to lockers in shopping centres.  Oh yes, the traditional local post office is gone.   Fancy cafes are more popular in suburbs - and everyone perhaps goes there on  a regular basis more than any other place.  Cafes can play another role as collection centres, more than newsagents.  

Online commerce has spiked to such proportions that the cardboard and materials used to pack parcels are becoming a menacing disposal matter. 
Some deliveries still insist on a signature by the recipient - and the seller just wants any form of mark, not a proper personalised signature, as proof of receipt.

How do we get satisfied that we are actually interacting with kosher and authentic other parties online?

As online consumers, we are always challenged that we are not robots.   We hardly get to authenticate parties on the other side of the electronic interface.   It truly feels like a one sided way of we always having to prove ourselves in an electronic transaction.

#yongkevthoughts

Numbers 2025

 In 2025:

Narendra Modi rules over 1.46 billion across India.

Xi Jin Ping presides over 1.424 billion across China.

Pope Leo XIV heads over 1.4 billion Catholics across the world.

The European Union has 449 million in an emerging political union of still rather independent states.

Donald Trump is President over 340 million people across the USA.

Indonesia's 294 million people currently have President Prabowo Subianto.

Pakistan has 255 million people under President Asif Ali Zardari.

Nigeria has 238 million residents in a country ruled by Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Brazil has 213 million people currently ruled by Luis Inacio Lula da Silva.

Bangladesh, located beside India and Myanmar, with 175 million people, currently has a caretaker government under Prime Minister Muhammad Yunus.

Russia has 146 million residents across a nation presided by Vladimir Putin.

Japan with 123 million people currently has Prime Minister Ishiba Shigeru.

The Phillippines has a population of 121 million under President Bong Bong Marcos Junior.

#yongkevthoughts

Clutter

 Clutter.....

Unknowingly.  Without any intention
.  They seem to creep up.  Before the sweeping conquest of most things online, clutter was more tangible, more physical, more visible.

It was one of the two times a calendar year we could leave things beside the pavement for Council services to collect
and dispose for us ratepayers.

Not everything, there are guidelines of what we can throw.  No chemicals, oils, paints, computer devices, toxic things, nothing too large.   Small furniture, mattresses, lawn mowers, kitchen gadgets, metal and pails seem okay.

How did households accumulate such items?  Once  they were useful, many times they were loved, always they provided joy.  Perhaps the original users and owners had moved on.   Maybe they had exceeded their useful life.  Many could have borne scars of peeled paint, loose screws and damaged corners.

When the items were removed, most likely from where they had been sitting for so many years now, a space was freed up.   The vibes of space and energy can move to a more positive stance when things that are hardly used are finally removed.

Why have such items been still kept but no longer used?    Are owners hanging on to sentimental memory or plan to use them again in the near future?   Everyone of us have wardrobe items from the past that we have not worn for a while.   We can have treasured books in our personal library that we read long ago.   Before wifi came and took over our lives, we had physical media in tangible storage for entertainment. Each of us have souvenirs from enjoyable tours.   

As baby boomers live longer, as houses become empty nests due to migration of the younger generations and as family elders downsize, the question of clutter and the need to dispose of household items can rear its ugly reality.

Every individual has silo interests echoed in personal possessions.

What is a person's treasure can be another's garbage.   What was lovingly cared for daily can become disposable in the eyes of another.

There can be a comfort zone in keeping something or not.   In a family scenario, will younger generations still keep the items valued by parents?   Will a spouse have the same cherished mindset over specific items prioritised by the other half?

Human beings are born with no attached material belongings - and so likewise when they pass on.  The human penchant for attachment especially to material things is how civilisation  and society have conditioned us.  Letting go of things is a trying process.    Over attachment leads to the accumulation of clutter.

Other people may call it clutter, but what we hold on to can represent our efforts, devotion and time spent in building them up.  It is essential to understand this perspective.   Then only can third parties comprehend the strong attachment of persons to things that cannot be let go of.

Clutter has emerged in cyberspace -  on screen records, documentation, images, videos and graphics for example.   As these are not that in the face physical, we may not fully recognise the extent of such clutter - until we run out of online capacity in our devices.

Everyone of us faces the responsibilityto manage clutter of whatever kind.  Is it much better that we control, manage and decide on matters of our own clutter?

Amidst the so called clutter, there can
be hidden gems.  The question then becomes when and to whom does the realisation of such hidden gems occur.

#yongkevthoughts

When It Is Fraud

 "i have not lost my memory, but I still do not seem to remember". So goes a line from an old British movie.

When asked to respond to concerns of the serious lack of competition in the supermarket sector across Australia, a representative of the business sector is said to proudly state that " but they are making profits to serve investors".

I cannot see the humour and logic in such pronouncements that miss the essential point.  More of such publicly made statements can be heard from those in authority, to detract and distract from issues they cannot explain.

"The exact contrary of what is generally believed is often the truth."
(Jean de la Bruyere)

"Our ability to manufacture fraud now exceeds our ability to detect it." ( Al Pacino).

Albert Camus once stated
'Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object."

"Fraud is the daughter of Greed." ( John Grant)

"Force and fraud are, in war, the two cardinal virtues.”
— Thomas Hobbes

"The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one's self. All sin is easy after that."
(Pearl Bailey)

"If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud."
-  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

"If it is too good to be true, it is probably a fraud."  (Ron Weber)

In Australia, there is more legal requirement to ensure truth when selling toilet paper in advertisements, than when in flagging political ads.

Whether it is in the context of business, politics, government service, communication media or international initiatives,  each of us must observe the words and actions who promise one thing and enact another. 

Confucius can have the final say.
"Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to
propriety;
make no movement which is contrary to propriety."

#yongkevthoughts

Screen Messaging

 The variety of contemporary social media communication, on screens of all sizes,

spreads across various options.   Messages, especially social ones, are sent at all times of the day or night, with little regard for the niceties of rules after hours and with the apparent gusto of the convenience of the sender.

The existence of group chat messages, although purposeful when they started being available, has witnessed its down side.   Arguments have broken out due to the steadfastness in belief and principle held and expressed by specific individual participants.   Much controversy has arisen over matters and issues practically beyond the control of such indivuduals - and arguments breaking out in group chats over various people taking a stand of their own views.

This further leads to the observation that many such online chat groups serve the need to reinforce the comfort and assurance of those who want to hear and read what they already believe in - and such chat groups are not for those who have a healthy interest in listening to or trying to understand other views on the same subject.

Line, Tik Tok, Instagram, Whtssapp, Signal and Telegram, to mention a few, supposedly have varying degrees of supposed privacy and encryption.

All offer voice, video, message and attachment capabilities.   Some restrict the number of words in text messages, all have storage capacity limits.  Unless one occasionally deletes the creeping build up of content on such apps, there can be inevitable grief.   Many in a group chat app utilise the feature of disappearing messages after a predetermined time, but will some members  miss some earlier messages shared if they do not regularly check such group messages?

Do we want to carry a chat without using audio at all - consisting of finger taps that may not spell properly,  some in a rush without careful thought and others in  such a casual manner of using lingo that will be not acceptable in formal writing.  The art of writing has been undermined and rare do we get to read a message with the grace of full grammar, punctuation and careful thought.  To me, conversation with some other human being is best carried out face to face and by articulating our spoken abilities.

There can be an expectation of a fast reply in messaging.   The reality is that such written messages can be only read at the next opportunity when the recipient has time to do so.   Yes, apps do offer features as well when the message sender knows that their message has been read by the recipient.  It must be borne in mind that each message recipient has a basic human right to be not using a cyberspace device all the time and be free of on screen demands as well - there are other things to do with our personal time.

The over crowding of messages, say on Whats App, does dilute the importance of written messages going through this Meta owned channel.    When a specific sender usually bombs recipients with an over whelming load of messages filled with casual links of video and web connections, many of no mutual interest on the part of the recipient, there can be an inevitable outcome.   Recipients lose interest in such messages, pyschologically withdraw from opening the offered links and inevitably will miss opening  the occasional significant personalised messages from the sender.

This dilution of paying attention in reaction to such overloading of otherwise not personally important messages has occured in the use of emails not long ago.
Such messages can reek of propaganda from a political and commercial view point.   The daily receipt of such communication can be compared to junk in the phyaical post box of old and the advertisements forced upon our viewing pleasure in paid or free to air streaming services.

Daily greetings do mean the effort and concern of meaningful friends or relatives
who make time to reach out to us.  At times, the recipient may not check his screen messages daily.  Is it considered rude not to always respond on a timely basis?

Images and weblinks can be attached on messaging apps, much like what we used to do with emails.  Several types of attachments can pose higher risks of containing cyberspace viruses or attacks, especially when images received can be automatically saved on to your gallery in your smart phones.

Short form written messages can be made in haste.  Recipients can misinterpret, take it out of context or not realise the true intended tone of such messages.

Formal issues are best written on documents or emails for recording purposes rather than left to the casualness of other communication methods.

Video clips can use up limited device storage capacity in our smart devices rather quickly.   Deletion of content can become a regular exercise in using apps.

You Tube links can be short, middling or long in requiring your time to view their clips.   For many of us, our attention span has sadly shortened to quick injections of dopamine to our physical brain wiring.

The instinctive need to share with and forward to friends and relatives can be an inherent human behaviour.    We discover new things on and off when we are informed.   We can be more willing to inquire and trust when we are communicated by someone we know in person, rather than from third parties.   However the recipient can have a problem with information overload.

Is there a protocol of politeness that we have to respond to every message sent to us?   What about messages that are forwarded from other chats, messages that originate from people or sources we do not know, but transmitted to us by a person we know?   Time and time again on the other hand we are advised to not click on dubious links.

In a working envionment, information sent or discussions made on apps may no longer be accessible, unlike emails or email attachments.

So how do we manage and learn to say no in response to the above situations?  I myself plead guilty to committing several of the misdemeanours discussed above.

#yongkevthoughts