Doubt

Assalamualaikum semua.

Dah lama aku tak jenguk blog ni. Walaupun ada banyak perkara yang aku nak share...lain kali la k...kali ni aku nak merapu je.

Nak dijadikan cerita, aku rasa aku sekarang ni punya self-esteem yang sangat low. Bagi yang mengikuti perkembangan aku, mungkin dah kenal aku ni macam mana, dan macam mana aku deal dengan different situations. And one of them is to talk in front of the audience. Masa aku keja di telecentre dulu, aku rilek je bagi talk depan 300++ audience. Tapi, lepas daripada proposal defense hari tu, aku dah tak yakin setiap kali nak membuat pembentangan. That was a traumatic experience for me.

Aku baru lepas hadiri conference sempena  UNIMAS silver jubilee as one of the presenters. Ntah mcm mana la paper aku yg tidak bagus tu boleh dipanggil untuk dibentangkan. Itu satu misteri. So, as expected, i was not as ethusiastic to present the paper. Dengan trauma dari PD, ditambah tiada motivasi dan tak yakin dengan paper tu, aku present like it's not so important. Supervisor aku tanya kwn2 aku sama ada diorg dah ready tak untuk presentation paper masing2. Tapi dia langsung tak tanya aku. Don't get me wrong. I trust my supervisor's decision to let me be independent. But dalam keadaan mental aku yang penuh dgn doubt about myself & my work, aku rasa being independent buat aku makin hilang arah, buat aku tertanya-tanya sama ada aku buat benda yang betul...either my SV trust me, or he's not actually interested in my topic. All those thoughts actually lead me to think that i chose the wrong topic and that my research is not worthy. Yea, suma ni cuma mainan minda. Tapi aku betul2 down.

Aku ni lepas kerja 2 tahun setengah baru sambung study...of course aku expect ada banyak hurdles yg perlu aku hadapi. Tapi semuanya OK saja. Sbb tu aku doubt my progress. Am I really doing okay?

Btw, masa conference tu, i didn't manage to answer the questions properly. I regret that. So, i want to answer all those questions here.

1. What did i meant by 'rural area'?

I didn't expect to be asked this. In my research context, the rural area is the underserved area located around at least 30 minutes from the town. However, the sample population i'm going to study are the villages that has been provided with ICT facilities (telecentre & internet access) by the government.

2. Why did i chose kuching and samarahan which mostly already has the facilities?

1stly, I intentionally doing my study in the area with facilities. If i conduct the research in the area which has no facilities, then i might not be able to identify the reason for internet resistance, coz they have no facilities. Then how can they adopt the technology? The reason would definitely be lack of facility then. Instead, if i did my research in the area with facility, they are many information i can get, including to assess the effectiveness of the intervention itself. I can see the geographical disparities in internet adoption... how their economic activies shape their interest in using internet, and how the intervention help in socioeconomic developement. In addition, moving towards digital economy, the government will provide internet access and improve telecommunication services in the other rural areas. So, it's very important to know the problem now to improve the intervention, therefore it would be impactful from the beginning.

3. When I talk about economic development, is it about e-commerce/e-marketing?

Yea, that was part of it. Mainly, the economic development here is depending on the economic activities of the rural community...which is mostly agricultural activities. Of course, e-marketing is part of it, especially on the marketing of the local product, which would give a great impact on the economic development in these rural areas. Besides that, i'm also looking at the impact of internet on employment and income.

4. Did i really find the negative impact of internet?

The impact of internet adoption is depending on how they use the internet. Based on my observation and literature, as well as interviews with some community members, there are positive & negative impact of it.

A. Education
The internet give a positive impact to the learning behaviour and academic performance through e-learning. But, the overusage of internet by the student on games or other entertainment give a negative impact in their academic performance. This is part of how some parents see telecentre in a negative way.

B. Economic.
There is no negative impact in the economic perspective of the local community.

C. Healthcare
Positive impact: information-seeking (KKM fb)
Negative impact: wrong information-seeking. Looking for 'petua2' that was not confirmed to be right. Rely on information from internet or google to look for a cure instead of going to the clinic.

They are just a few negative cases. Most of the rural people trust clinical treatment more and know that the information from the internet is unreliable when it comes to healthcare.

D. Social
Positive: youth community (gather youth with same interest to find a way to be productive using their interest, such as busking, videography, photography, business & etc., communication, social relation, etc.
Negative: too much exposure to other culture which influence the younger generation. Eg: pornography, drugs & violence.

The negative social impact of internet were mostly commented by the older generation.


That's it. Except for the 1st question, the answer for the other 3 was in my mind during the presentation. But somehow, i cannot say it out. I just want to get my session done with. Prof. N's comments during my PD keeps on rewinding in my head.

I would like to apologize to everyone who was there during my presentation.

I am going to remember my failure, always. So that i keep on improving myself. I must. But somehow i don't see myself improving. Will i be okay?