President Yudhoyono said, in this 21st century, the world is faced with the strength and frequency of contact between citizens via cable television, e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook, far exceeding the official contacts between government officials.
"For the first time, the fact is in contrast to what happened four decades ago," said Yudhoyono, speaking before hundreds of delegates at the meeting of Foreign Ministers of ASEAN, the ASEAN Ministers' Meeting (AMM) to-44 in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Tuesday (07/19/2011).
How millions of people are involved in contacts between countries exceed the limit so that it can provide benefits and opportunities. When viewed in the context of bilateral relations between countries, then it will be bound to be issues and problems.
SBY is also aware of how the Facebook social networking users in Indonesia, including the world's largest, have increased from year to year "Indonesia is the world's second largest and third largest for Facebook to Twitter. Indonesia understands this new trend," he said.
According to him, any government in this world, no one has an answer to the power of this virtual world trends. ASEAN must also enter into a real and immediate action to manage the new trend is for the benefit of society.
"We must remain open-minded and creative use of technology to improve the quality of life, promote and develop cooperation among citizens across countries, particularly in the ASEAN region," he asserted.
Nevertheless, he still believed that one of ASEAN's major task is situated on the strength of the people in establishing diplomatic cooperation.
"We all agreed that the 21st century, ASEAN into a dynamic and relevant, must be people-centered and people-driven use of technology," he stated.
He also asked all ASEAN countries to take advantage of social networking well to reduce the harm caused by the power of open mind to progress together.