12 March 2011

Always accessible

Last Saturday, I was checking out something on my Nokia E 63.

I kept pressing the number 0 for a long time and I realised that I got connected to internet and the google page opened on my mobile. I was jubilant for a moment and I quickly checked my gmail account and also checked out the cricket score of the match which was going on b/w India and England! I did not know all this while that I could access internet on my cell. My joy however died in few minutes as I got bored of surfing on a small screen.

I thought, is it really worth it to be online and reachable all the time? Say on Facebook or google chat or yahoo chat? Or on office mails? Is it not a compulsive behavior to check mails every hour or every two hours? Am I really missing out on something by not using the laptop at all on a w/e? I am online on weekdays for office work. Then why don't I do something else on w/e?

I sincerely feel that my generation has become addicted to technology now. We have forgotten to make good use of the time that is available to us. Going out for a walk or going to a park, hanging out with friends or just relaxing by reading a book or by playing indoor games like Scrabble, cards etc. has now almost become extinct. Children are hooked to television and computers from a small age itself. I started using the mobile at the age of 21 and I am sure, my children will start using it in their cradle itself because that is going to be just another commodity for them, which was a luxury to me in my childhood.

How times have drastically changed!! Almost everybody has a mobile now. But we have gone away from our inner core or true self by using these ultra modern gadgets like mobile, i phone, laptop, palmtop excessively. We tend to interact less with real people and communicate more on chat and mails. Personal contact is becoming lesser day by day and they say world is getting closer and closer. In what sense? Everything is available at the click of a button. Can this computer sing lullabies in your grandmom's voice? Or can your cell bring your best friend in front of you in flesh and blood so that you can talk your heart out to here?

I am not saying that we should stop using these gadgets and go back to stone age. No, these gadgets help us in keeping ourselves updated about what is happening around us and also helps us to make personal progress and social progress on a whole. But the use of such gadgets has to be limited and they shouldn't become so important that they start ruling us instead they being at our disposal.

I now tend to forget that internet is accessible on my cell and concentrate on using my time on w/e more constructively by writing something like this.

:-)

Do you agree with my thinking that technology commands us nowadays? Or you are still the blessed one, who says no to surfing and chatting when it is not really needed and has his/her own private world without gadgets and where it is just you and your heart?

I would like to know your thoughts on this too!!

4 comments:

  1. Yeah I completely agree with this. I had become very compulsive some days back with facebook before joining here. Without any reason used to log in and keep on doing some or the other thing. But now have ridden myself from it.

    Its really true that the next generation would have their own numbers from a very small age. (I guess some already have). We see them playing games on mobile and some even have an internet account at a very small age and a face book account too. My niece, age 11 sent me an invitation to be frnd on face book. I couldn’t digest this. When I was of her age, we only thought of going out and playing or when indoors reading, playing games etc. But unfortunately the new generation is missing on all these lovely things which we enjoyed in our childhood. Its high time that we imbibe these qualities in our children.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Remember the downfall of Powerful Ruler of Egypt Hosni Mubarak was started on Internet and gathered momentum every passing day with the youth in Egypt using facebook, twitter and other social mediums on Internet to gather support.
    These extraordinary events are a turning point not only for Egypt, but for the entire world.

    But personally i think people have become addicted to technology and it has started commanding us. People have stopped going to libraries and read books and just go to google and download which sometimes confuses you more.

    What is the use of having 600 “friends” on facebook who just send one liners. I would rather like to have 3-4 very close friends who are there with you lifelong in good and bad times of life.

    Everything is so Instant with technology, that the tolerance levels have also decreased. More violent behavior, value systems being eroded.

    Yes we are Spending more time on technology. You know each and everything around the farthest corners of the world, but don’t know who your neighbor is.

    But nothing is permanent. I sincerely hope as this is also a passing phase which will slowly die its natural death.

    But really and Truly speaking Technology is just a tool. It depends how we use it.

    Like the Knife which can be used by Murderer to Kill or by a Surgeon to save Life. So the Problem is not Knife but how we use. Similarly the problem is not Technology but how we use it.

    We need to understand that detachment is necessary. Just like whole some meal where you have all the major ingredients like Roti, Sabji, Daal,Rice, you also need to pickle for the taste buds.

    We just to remind ourselves that excess pickle( spending too much time with Technology) may be harmful in long run!!!

    So moral of the story “Don’t get too much attached to anything in Life”

    Nitin

    ReplyDelete
  3. I need a technology break. Thinking of spending few days(if my bully-mafia-boss sanctions my leave) in Nature-Konkan.

    I think the day starts with Morning Alarm Clock till we switch off the lights and turn on the Mosquito-repellent machine for most of us.This means we are chased by technology 24X7.

    Instant digital cameras have ruined the old hard bind photo albums which people used to keep in memories for years.

    Facebook might have been the channel for Egypt outburst but why did it took so long for those people. During India's freedom struggle, the newspaper articles, the handouts gave the revolution a nationwide upside(and not the internet).

    Facebook/Orkut to that extent any social networking website has given unwanted access of people's personal life to the world. Yeah, you can share you good and bad with the world but the world is full of con people who enjoy messing the lives of others.

    Yes, the technology is important but keep it limited otherwise I am afraid we will get into the world of binary-logic and would end up being a micro chip running on the inputs of sequential 0's(zeros) and 1's (ones).(Oops !!! my comment will be converted to 0-1 after I post it).

    ReplyDelete
  4. firstly, I could not have read this blog if I were away from internet over this weekend, so it is not at all bad.

    It is just "Ati Sarvtra Varjayte", means excess is always harmful.

    So it should be always balance which keeps you good life. Its always better to be updated with latest technology and at same time need to be in contact of friends/relatives. I know all of us will be able to do this.

    ReplyDelete

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I grew up in a central suburb of Mumbai, called Dombivli and spent 23 years there. I went to school in Dombivli and later to college in Mulu...