About Author: Aida Al Busaidy

Do you ever ask the question as to why we communicate? (Not how) Is it to get a message across; is it to persuade someone or a group of people or do you just communicate to express your feelings? I mean, how useful is this thing we call “Communications”? That question and many others were explored at the Emiratweet Social Media Day held at the Knowledge Village Auditorium. The place is in fact the most appropriate place to discuss and share the knowledge of how we as humans have evolved in the way we speak to ourselves and to others and the means we use to do that.

Heba Al Samt and Hanan Al Huwair are two dynamic young Emirati women who have used their strength in Information & Communications Technology and their zest for promoting all things Emirati, brought to life how important social media is to our lives. The audience as you’d expect was everyone who knew of the event regardless of whether they physically were there and that’s the joy of saying you are an avid social media user because each person there including the speakers were feeding into the live streams via twitter to bring the world closer to our thoughts and our voices. The event in itself was a platform such as many organized before by Emiratweet, to bring likeminded people together to share, learn, take away and hopefully use.

Now, I focused on the overall strategy of the forum but what’s in it for the people who speak, use and know social media? Another question is what’s in it for those who aren’t that into social media and finally, those who might get drawn by the magical powers that social media possess. The answer is simple: you get a voice. I’m surprised at how many people feel the louder you are, the more people listen when in fact you can communicate as silently as writing on a piece of paper and still make the hairs on peoples’ back stand. It’s simple, when you are born you are expected to communicate, how you choose to do that is based on your upbringing, education, resources around and of course your own motivation and how skilful you are when using a technological device. Each person in the room that day has gone through the cycle of communicating, but current social media offers us faster ways to get our messages across.

The interesting thing about the forum is that everyone had something to share and although Social Media has progressed, it hasn’t taken over our communications skills on a face to face level. This surprisingly made us all appreciate one another that we accept the future (which comes with technological advancement) and want to make the most out of it by progressing ourselves and whatever we choose to promote, but we haven’t forgotten the basics of talking to each other and not at each other. I wanted to delve so much into what each speaker said because we all said different things but we spoke in unison when it comes to accepting the progress of modes of communicating, be it tweets with meat, turning Facebook into Facelinks or simply pinging for pleasure.

Before I close I wanted to thank the speakers who sat next to me of the day starting with Aysha Al Janahi @gladiius, Jalal Bin Thaneya @Binthaneya , Heba Al Samt @angelistiic, Mostafa Ali @afmfilms and the MC Ahmed @Alhassoni who exemplify the meaning of empowering Emiratis and Social Media towards a more progress communications world.

Virtual affections

@AidaAlB