Looking back, I am quite surprise how a period of several years had tremendously changed people’s lifestyle. Mungkin kita perlu refer to the findings of Anthropology studies and data gathered in Sociology untuk define perubahan tu. Since these two sources involve the word ‘study’ or ‘scholar’, I think I’ll just forget it. Perhaps I want to look at it within the nucleic scale- so aku rasa penceritaan kembali kes budak darjah satu tahun 1991 (akulah tu) kiranya sudahpun memadai. Back then, the only source of general knowledge for me was from the back of a cereal box. Accordingly, you can guess how much confusion we had when being presented with new things. Satu hari tu sambil duduk-duduk makan aiskrim sirap dengan kawan aku si Farid, dia cakap…’bapak aku baru beli mesin basuh matematik semalam’. I was thinking that he may want to say ‘automatic’, but I myself was like only 8% sure ‘matematik’ is a subject taught at school. I tried to correct him anyway.
What pursued then was a heated argument on whether matematik or automatic is suitable to describe a washing machine. The conclusion was never reached that particular evening but sure involved a Kungfu showdown for closing, as usual.
By today’s standards for budak Darjah Satu, that kind of ignorance is truly unacceptable. Pasal info boleh dapat pakai hujung jari je. Plus, banyak lagi isu-isu penting to be addressed untuk Standard One 17 tahun yang lepas- isu berak dalam seluar atau muntah dalam kelas contohnya. Aku masih ingat Cikgu Hasanol Said (Batu Road Boys School 2) sentiasa simpan seluar sekolah spare dalam beg dia, in case…well…in case.
Sekiranya korang dapat eja nama sendiri dengan betul on the first day at school, it was a pure success. Because many others masih samar-samar dengan nama sebenar diorang.
Sure enough, Standard One hari ni still berperangai seperti budak. But whoa! it’s an entirely, immensely different level compared to zaman aku. Dah giler advanced, thanks to the massive influx of information hari ni. From the the internet (of course), the VCD, and the 24 hours a day TV (termasuk rancangan kartun, dulu-dulu kartun paling lewat pon pukul 7 time Maghrib, tu pon silalah pasang sekiranya ingin penerajang mak bapak).
Dan jangan lupa alat penyambung nyawa utama, the handphone. Everyone has one. I know it is a fascinating device for the Standard Ones, and for us too, pasal HP boleh buat apa saja- jadi camera? Radio? Recorder? Music Player? TV? Internet? You name it, it’ll be it.
Kalau tak lama nanti keluar model HP boleh jadi toaster, mustahil aku akan terkejut sepertimana bila aku jumpa album ‘Black Sabbath vs. Nat King Cole’ kat kedai CD Yik Foong dulu. If we’re talking about electronics here, just about anything could happen.
Aku tak pernah ada isu dengan multifunction HP macam tu. It’s offers convenience, at its best. Cuma biasanya makin complicated device ni, maka makin fragile lah ia. It’ll malfunction and break into pieces from the slightest shock macam vibration seluar masa korang kentut panas dan tersumbat.
Very, very fragile.
Now if you look at this HP in the context of Standard Ones, the present you, and the present me, I suggest similarity. I see that today they are trying to create a multitasking, multifunctioning, multiple-superiple-dupariple generation. ‘Well rounded’ should be the perfect phrase to describe this. The phrase which is more common than perkataan ‘nasik’ di sekolah dan universiti nowadays.
Consequently, bila kepala otak kita dah overfilled dengan info, isn’t there a possibility untuk kita jadi fragile macam HP? Atau hang macam computer (tolonglah jangan hang masa pakai Ansys, fedap I tauuu!)?
Dan ini kita ni bukan dalam movie Population 437. We know the population will always increase exponentially. So if someone can do everything, apa role orang lain pulak? If HP can be everything, what are the use of the real cameras, the real radios, the real thing?
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