Search for Mom: Lost child uses mall directory to find mother, netizens suggest possible new functions

Necessity is the mother of invention.

Lost in Our Tampines Hub and surrounded by unfamiliar faces with no means of communication, one primary school kid devised what seemed like the perfect plan for locating his mother — by keying "Mom" into the mall's digital directory.

After all, Jewel Changi has a similar function for finding your car.

Unfortunately for the young Einstein, his search yielded no results, but according to an eyewitness, he found his mother anyway.

His big brain moment, shared onto Facebook by Power 98 on Wednesday (Oct 19), sparked a discussion online on the possible functions a directory could have.

[embed]https://www.facebook.com/Power98SG/posts/4245941185422376[/embed]

Some netizens realised the kid was on to a potential solution for a recurring problem: how can lost children locate their parents without the use of a mobile device?

They suggested including a button called "Find my Mom/Dad", or upgrading the digital directories to guide a child to the nearest information counter if they were to search for keywords such as "Mom" or "Dad".

Others joked that the same function could be useful for helping them find other things too.

But if traditional methods — like borrowing a phone or waiting in a pre-agreed location — ain't broke, there's no real need to fix it, is there?

rainercheung@asiaone.com