[Ken Leung]

French author Jean Baudrillard described a concept call "hyperreality", which talks about how people's view of the world is no longer "reality", but rather the "hyperreality" created by TV, movies, and the media in general. When the news report tells you something that's happening in another part of the world, instead of actually experiencing the event, the viewer's "reality" of the event is actually the string of images on the TV screens. In an age where the mass media are everywhere, in effect a new reality, hyperreality, is created, composed of the intermingling of people's behavior and media images. (Introduction to Sociology, Giddens, 2003)

When you think about it, a make a lot of sense when combined with the passage from above. Nowadays, a majority of our preception of the rest of the world comes from the media, and the internet. Instead of actually witnessing the events, or experiencing them, we often settle with reading about them on newspaper or some website. After a while, people tend to get used to just sitting there listening and reading, instead of going out and experiencing the world.

A great thing about FIRST is that you can actually participate in it, instead of always being a spectator. I've started being really quiet and anti-social, although I still am anti-social, I tried participanting in the FIRST activities around me. It made a difference in my life in the sense that I no longer just sit there and be comfortable with being a receiver. When I see problems, I want to think about them instead of waiting for an answer. When I see fun things happening, instead of watching them happen I choose to be a part of them.

When you think about it, so many kids are preconditioned by school, media, and their parents about how to think. The school do a good job of feeding you information they want you to learn, the media do a great job of capturing your attention down to the seconds, and your parents tends to lecture you about the appropiate social behaviors. After so many years of being a receiver, people tends to get lazy of going out into the world and try to live a little bit, much less trying to do their own thinking. It is very unfortunate that the system try to shape people to fit in as a part of it, instead of independent thinkers. But that's exactly the kind of things FIRST can help change.