#GROUP DISCUSSION 2

    1)      How has CMC transform the dynamics of interaction?

- Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) makes a big change to the pattern of communication among people. As suggested by its name, CMC makes people interact via technology rather than just communicating face to face as done by people from previous decades when computers are still not vastly used. People in this modern era interact by various different means of communication using computers. For example, they use instant messaging, emails, bulletin boards, video conference and social networking sites. In fact, those means of communication are more widely used if compared to face to face interaction because people are getting comfortable using those methods of conversing.

    2)      How has this transformation shape society?

- There are pros and cons in everything we do. Therefore, there will also be the positive and negative effects of using the CMC, especially towards the society.

Ø  We tend to know everyone, virtually.

In the virtual world as in the sites on the internet, we did not really see the person. Therefore, we tend to be friends with everyone especially in the social networking sites even though we did not know them. This might be because it is so easy to be bonded with people on the internet. For example, in Facebook, what we have to do to enter someone’s life is to just simply click the ‘add’ button and once he/she approve the request, we are said to be his/her friend, as simple as that. However, if we stumbled upon them in real life, we did not really talk to them.

Ø  People are becoming socially awkward

When most interaction is done via the internet, the soft skills of the users of the computers are getting tarnished. As a result, we don’t know how to mingle with people anymore, we don’t know how to develop better social relationships with others, we don’t have the skills in using languages and we don’t even know how to be flexible and how to adapt when dealing with various kinds of people. Therefore, people are becoming socially awkward and that reduces our quality as a human being.

    3)      Is this mode of communication in sync with Islam?

- Yes.  Through CMC we can strengthen the relationship among Muslims and Islam encourages us to be close to each other.

Plus, the fact that we can actually have virtual friends from different religion also is an advantage for us as we can use the medium to spread da’wah. We should bear in mind that thehukm for spreading da’wah for us as a Muslim is FardAin, which means each and every one of us should preach others, depending on our capabilities.

#WEEK 6: COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION(CMC)

REFLECTION

In the current world that we are living in, we feel that CMC (Computer Mediated Communication) is an important tool in language learning. This is because most of us use CMC, whether it is synchronous or asynchronous, in our daily lives. At this time, we depend on emails, Skype, WhatsApp and etc to communicate with others. Mobile phones, smart phones, tablets and other devices that has the Internet connection is also considered as CMC. 

As language learners, we believe that CMC is an essential tool for learners to acquire language. Learners can learn how to write by reading E-articles and E-books and talk like native speakers by watching videos on YouTube. Nowadays, people often have live video conferences to give lectures and talks.

From an Islamic perspective, we feel that CMC brings no harm to mankind if use wisely. As Muslims, are taught to use the things that we have in our time to acquire knowledge and in this case language. However, we feel that as Muslims, we should only do good with CMC and avoid whatever that can lead us astray. We think that we should use CMC to do da'wah to mankind all over the world. We can use blogs to share what we learn or we can also create video blogs or YouTube to tell stories of Islam to others. There are so many ways of spreading da'wah to others through CMC. It is a matter of whether you want to do it or not.

Al-Bukhari narrated it on the authority of Anas, as follows:

"Make things easy! And do not make them complicated! Be cheerful! And do not be repulsive."

We feel that CMC is a tool given by Allah to men of our age for us to acquire knowledge easily without any problems.