It’s amazing how advanced technology has created a beneficial tool that helps us in many ways — apart from its main purpose, which is to communicate and enable people to interact. Mobile or cellular phones have improved life in all societies by filling certain gaps other than being simply a means of communication.
In our society, mobile phones are used in many areas; most importantly, they help the media. When people send films of someone misbehaving or committing a crime, they are sending an obligatory message to everyone that they ought to help in amending and altering people’s mind-set and ethics. Being a victim of such scandals is not something anyone would want to be.
Things that are not exposed or written about in the press or the media, for instance, can be easily transmitted by mobile phones. This has helped the media to increase its credibility and transparency and to widen the scope of issues tackled and covered.
And just like other media outlets, mobile phones lend themselves to being used incorrectly and negatively. But these cannot be blamed on technology because people using the technology are responsible for their own attitudes and actions.
A group of people might use mobile phones to spread unethical material or rumors and so put them to a use advantageous to them and their interests. A few days ago people were exchanging text messages about a new ministerial reshuffle that included names, expectations and a whole list of falsehoods.
The creators of technological rumors are probably in one of the following three groups: People who are desperate to promote themselves, people who have too much spare time and are addicted to, and delighted by, spreading rumors, or fortune-tellers who bet their lives on the unknown and don’t believe in despair even if their silly attempts always fail.
I believe we’re in a country that has enough wisdom not to let the process of decision-making be influenced by such rumors and desires. Here I would like to quote Labor Minister Ghazi Al-Gosaibi who addressed this issue in his book “Life in Management.”
He said, after receiving the news of being appointed the minister of health, “During the weekend, many people were being congratulated after they had received the news from ‘a well-informed source’ that they were going to be the new health minister!”
