Voyeurism: The One who Looks

Recently, my editor called us into her office for a brainstorming session for 2010 themes, and as we sat (Mpho & I) lacking inspiration we somehow ended up on social networking. Then the forbidden word came up “voyeurism”, taken from the French word “voyeur” meaning”the one who looks”. Referring to someone who regularly observes others without their knowledge.

This is very much relevant in the social networking society; you read someone's eye-catching status update, tweet or blog post and intentionally don't comment on it because you don't want them to know you were watching them? Or a friend that you fought with but haven’t deleted so that you can see what they are up to...guilty as charged? Then you are a voyeur

When did this start? Why are we easily following it? Is voyeurism the new way of stalking? Has society forgotten the old way of interacting and socialising with people, and have taken to social networking with a passion? Why have we shifted so easily?

I know it’s a lot of questions to answer all at once, and maybe I am sounding all negative. Do not get me wrong there is a good side to social networking.
I am now very close with a friend of mine, that I last saw in pre-school, and all thanks to meeting again on facebook. We even chat on a regular basis now (everyday to be exact) the joys of having mxit on my phone. We don’t even have to go through the hussle of making invitations for a 21st these days. You just log on to facebook and update the event section and send your invite.
If you have a magazine, then you don’t have to regularly post letters or send sms’es. You just start a facebook group, have a twitter profile and advertise it on mxit. With those three platforms you can rest assured no one will miss it.

Sizophila Khubone, one of my friends recently turned 20 and her status update was “What happened to receiving calls in the early hours of the morning on your birthday? All I get is thousands of fb msgs and fake cakes. This is just not on”.
This is just one of the qualms I have with social networking.
We have become antisocially social. We see no need of interacting with people.
We have accepted that social networking is the way to go and we are not questioning what we missing out on because of these “social networks”
We all know that our parents hate mxit, but have we ever really looked at why they don’t like it? Maybe they might have a point. Looked at why companies choose to block facebook, or youtube.

Don’t we think as the Xl generation its time to stop looking at things face value,
and dig deep. If I say I want us to go back to the old way of communicating, don’t just take my word for it. Think what is that way of communicating? Is it still feasible in this day and age? How many people can still do it? Maybe we have gone too far that we can’t turn back anymore, or maybe we haven’t. Either way it wouldn’t hurt us to try. We might just be surprised at what we realise we missing out on.

What do Celebs think of social networking websites?

Azania Ndoro Presenter Total Bliss- They are great, but I feel that they have made communication shallow. It doesn’t go deep anymore. People used to have long blogs, about staff that made you think but now communication is frantic and rushed, it just doesn’t go deep.

Hlelo Masina (yfm) - from the celebrity point of view. It is a great way of keeping intouch with your fans. Letting them know what your plans are, basically giving them an idea of the kind of person that you are. You obviously cannot put on too much information about yourself, but I think twitter & facebook are just great.

Phila Mazibuko (Live reporter) - it is a great way to network, but it can be dangerous as well depending on how old you are. I have heard and read about stories where young kids meet up with old men, and people sending each other naked pictures of themselves so from that angle it’s not good.