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By Serene Goh, Assistant News Editor
THE writing is on that proverbial wall: The Speak Good English Movement (SGEM) is switching to silent mode.
Organisers of the national campaign to promote better articulation of Singapore's working language are turning to youth-preferred social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs to exhort youths to 'Impress. Inspire. Intoxicate'.
SGEM decided on this after their survey last year of 1,243 Singaporeans aged 15 to 39 found that about 40 per cent felt they did not need to speak proper English, for they already had sufficient communication skills.
SGEM is the latest to board the non-vocal bandwagon. Everyone, from corporations and government agencies to schools, has been swept on board.
Even the National Day Parade organisers this year tried galvanising the Net-generation to celebrate by coming up with a Facebook group, NDPeeps.
Speaking to young people, via telephone or face-to-face speech, is a non-starter these days. Use a text-based channel, and you will reach them.
They will, in fact, pour their hearts out in text messages, on online chatrooms and over instant messaging platforms. They will, on formal occasions, use e-mail, but they seem most emboldened when blogging and most forthcoming in online forums.
And, yes, they become loquacious on these occasions in part because they like hiding behind horrendous-sounding online handles.
Telcos led the way by first introducing mobile subscription plans supporting more SMSes and less talk time. These days, consumer websites have operators on chat standby round-the-clock as part of their call-centre service, while mobile technology can deliver the latest information on deals the minute you enter a mall.
But organisations which are not driven by profit seem to lag behind this transformation. Youth helplines, for example, have no modern communication strategy to speak of. Although most can handle a heavy volume of phone-ins, they say they get few callers.
The organisation that comes closest to employing new media means of communication is Audible Hearts, an e-mail service run by the Health Promotion Board (HPB), which encourages troubled youths to write about their problems to trained peer-group counsellors called YouthPals.
The service, launched in November 2006, had e-mails from 700 youths in about 33 months - about one case every day and a half.
Dr Carol Balhetchet, director of youth services at the Singapore Children's Society, reckons these numbers are no gauge of the many troubled teens out there. The experienced youth counsellor also wonders whether a protracted exchange of e-mails is 'dynamic' enough.
Even so, Audible Hearts seems to fare better than other helplines. While Touchline, for example, gets about 200 to 300 crisis calls a year from youths, Teen Challenge received about 50 calls from January to June this year. Youthline, which caters to youths aged 13 to 19, has received just 23 calls since its relaunch in March.
There's no need to wonder why there were so few calls: youth prefers to text. It's far easier for a young person to text 'Need 2 talk' or 'Help me pse' than utter these phrases over the phone.
It might be because they are too shy to even bring themselves to speak up. Perhaps they don't wish to endure the seconds waiting for someone to get to the phone, then having to answer the awkward questions.
But an instant message is, well, instant. The youth remains anonymous and he or she can choose when and how to respond without hearing another person breathing down the line.
It is ironic that mobile phones come pre-programmed with numbers for 4D results, but not an SMS helpline for the distressed. Why not embed womb rooms in online games such as MapleStory or Halo, where unhappy children can drop in for chats? How about an interactive group or two on everyone's favourite Facebook? Or let troubled souls offload on Twitter while counsellors 'follow' their moods?
Isn't it archaic to write these telephone numbers on a whiteboard and expect our PSP-distracted youth to take them down?
At any rate, no kiasu teenager wants to appear 'wimpy' to his friends by noting those numbers. That's what secondary schoolers told The Straits Times in a straw poll on why they ignore helplines.
In other parts of the world, youth helplines have been revising the way they do things. For the past year or so, in Ireland, youths have been able to text 'Headsup' to 50424 to access up-to-date information for support services on issues such as relationships, suicide, teen issues, sexual health and mental health. The fully automated 24-hour text service is provided by The Rehab Group, a non-profit organisation that guarantees confidentiality.
It's free to all mobile phone users on all networks. And having been designed with the young in mind, it is also instant. Its catchy motto: 'Head wrecked? Give us a text.'
Ms Angela Kerins, Rehab's chief executive, pointed out that getting to a troubled youth quickly is crucial.
'There may be only a short period of time when a young person tries to access help, and in many cases they do not know where to go to get the support they need.'
It seems unproductive to have qualified counsellors sitting idly by the phone, waiting for calls when they could be chatting with troubled teens online, or responding to crisis text messages.
Why not apply the creativity of youth marketing to youth counselling?
After all, even SGEM is meeting them on their own turf to get them to use good English, even if they don't wish to speak it.
This article was first published in The Straits Times.
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