Being born in the 90s, many wouldsay that we are part of the Millennial Generation or even the ‘Strawberrygeneration’. Having said that, Singapore at the time was one of the fastestdeveloping countries after the World War 2, and having access to technology oreven the media was very evident growing up.  So, in my essay, I would be talkingabout how globalization along with transnational affect the flows of thewestern and eastern culture and how it influences one another in terms of codesand practices in our daily lives.  I would say that globalization playeda huge part in our country’s rapid development.

Vineet (2011,p.6) mentions that”We see globalization as the extension of trends and influences (such as ideas,concepts, knowledge, ethics, and technology as well as behaviors) acrosserstwhile barriers (ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious, political orenvironmental)”.  But if we were to talk abouttechnology specifically, the “boom” period would be when the revolution ofsocial media began. According to Holly, (2011, p.15), social media is referredto Rapid and innovative advances in participative Internet communications.

Other may describe social media as a group of Internet-based applications thatbuild on the ideological and technological foundations of the internet and it’sapplications which allows the exchange of content created by the web community (Kaplan& Haenlein,2010). For instance, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Thesemedia outlets were the very first outlets where I was first exposed to ideas,culture, and information from the western countries.

And whether subconsciouslyor not, these various ideas, cultures, and way of life even from the westerncountries started to affect the way I behave and react to certain things.     There was a period where peoplebegan to share their lives, and daily happening on social media. It firststarted out with Snapchat having the function followed by other social mediaoutlets like Instagram.

This function allowed people to capture down what ishappening in their daily lives and share it with the world. It includesfootages or images of food and what they were doing at any point of the day.  However, many would argue that thissocial “boom” is detrimental to not only millennial generations but at thesame, it is causing them to have a false sense of identity and notion towardscertain culture habits and mindsets.

As mention by Sonia (2008, p.393), “Whileyounger teenagers relish the opportunities to recreate continuously ahighly-decorated, stylistically-elaborate identity, older teenagers favor aplain aesthetic that foregrounds their links to others, thus expressing anotion of identity lived through authentic relationships”.  Although this ‘trend’ started inthe western countries, somehow it managed to cross over and slowly people inSingapore or even Asia were starting to do so as well. Oxford living dictionarydefines trend as a topic that is the subject of many posts on a social media websiteor application within a short period of time.

And that’s when you would realizethat it became a form of social media culture which can be seen clearly inSingapore even up till today. Not to forget that it is what was cool or popularat that time. It became a form of unspoken code and practice in our daily lives.  With that, I would say that wouldbe how pop culture is consumed from the west to the east. This transnationalflow between the west and east is basically a flow of culture and ideas fromone part of the world to the other. The flow would then affect the variousliving habits according to the new information that is gathered on what isright and wrong.  Having said that, I personally wasalso affected by this new culture of sharing my life on social media. Oneexample would be whenever there is an aesthetic meal in front of me, I wouldneed to take a photo of it to post it on social media before consuming it, justto show my followers, or show them that I have been to the latest or mostpopular places to dine.

I do this even when I am eating with a group offriends, and they would all have to wait for me to take a photo before they canbegin eating, even if they were starving  And with that, it got to a pointwhere shops especially the F industry, would come up with aestheticpleasing meals, simply because they knew people would take photos of it andthey could use this chance as an opportunity to promote themselves at the sametime.  This is just one example of howtechnology and mobility affect our everyday life. Initially, technology wassimply used to contact one another in times of need, however as time passestechnology became much more accessible to most developed countries although therural countries see it as a form of ‘privilege’.  But it is also because of thisaccessibility and spread of culture and trend, that such ideas like sharingyour life on social media becomes a universal idea just like how I mentionabove where it becomes a code, a form of normalization because everyone isdoing it and social media platforms are our form of “space” that we use to feedour ego or our need for validation. It is argued that the media is frequentlyblamed for making young people think and act anti-socially (Andy,2013).  This is true to a certain extentbecause even in my own circle, I have friends who can sound so fun andenergetic while texting or even in the photos on social media.

However, when itcomes to interacting with them face-to-face, they behave like another person,reserved and shy. Many of them would prefer to communicate via text thanspeaking face to face. And before technology came about, during mygrandparents’ generation, you would not see such situations happening, becauseall this only happened because of globalization.  Another example, how such form ofglobalization affects us would be the use of dating apps nowadays. In the past,the only way people got to know one another would be to interact and face oneanother in real life and not through a screen, however, with technology andsocial media, there are dating apps like tinder where you can swipe and startchatting with someone just by looking at the profile pictures. And if you decideone day that you do not wish to continue chatting with a person, you can just stopwith no rhyme or reason. You can also choose to talk to someone new without havingto face any form of rejection in real life that may or may harm your self-esteemlevel. This is vital in today’s era because there’s a reason why they call us the’Strawberry generation’, that’s simply because we are known to be unable to handlesetbacks and rejection, and when we face such situations we may even break downentirely and it would require a lot of effort to get us back on our feet.

Althoughthis does not apply to all teenagers, these are the general stereotypes that areform on our youths these days.  Once again, this evidently changesthe way people behave because, for those who are introverts or shy to meet newpeople face to face, they can simply stay behind their phones and at the sametime converse with someone they have never met before. So, this differs fromthe traditional method seeing and getting to know someone face to face throughtime. I have personally used tinder a couple of times just for fun, and I mustsay it does boost once ego when you see someone “matching” with you, orstarting a conversation with you because they like how you look or feel thatthey might have a possible connection with you.  All in all, many would debate onthe exact role that social media has on us, and as well as the impact it has onthe country’s economy. Nonetheless, I feel that what really is important isthat it is reasonable for us to use such cultural flows to find an identitythat is most comfortable for us, but at the end of the day we must understandthe difference between what a virtual world can provide you (ego, popularity,sense of recognition and validation etc.), and what is needed of you.

Once weare clear with that, having some form of change to our habit and lifestyles maynot always be a bad thing.