Like the Buddhist monks completely immersed in prayer, the heads of all
five window seat passengers in the vehicle were bent. Were they meticulously observing
their crotch, I wondered for a while. At the next traffic signal, I managed to
closely watch the Tempo Traveller which was carrying this young bunch. Some
faces were serious and some had a hint of smile playing on their lips. Ah, then
I realized. They were looking at their mobile screens! As I caught a glimpse of
them off and on for the next five minutes, not even once I saw anybody looking straight ahead. Two years down the line, will some of them walk with a
permanent tilt to their torso? May be.
In this age of technology, I am just past the Ice Age. I discovered
whatsapp about 4-5 months back and am yet to get hooked. 4G is still an option
waiting to be adopted and internet is switched on in my mobile only
occasionally. Ipad and imac, though enticing, seem obscenely expensive and I
have refused to bite the bullet. A pocket notebook continues to be my option to
jot down the grocery list though I find the reminder option in mobiles
extremely useful. I enjoy music on my mobile while travelling. As I am
uncomfortable with typing on a touchscreen I have shied away from tablets till
now even as my kids keep telling me that a tablet would be great for games. Despite
all these precautions, I feel that somehow I am failing to arrest the invasion
of technology into my private life. I am being dumbed down by technology. My
attempts to prevent the assault have been, I am afraid, feeble. Mobiles and
laptops have thrown my schedule-if ever there was one-into complete disarray.
From morning till night, technology gives us company. Checking the
facebook page sitting on the pot, sticking the plastic headphone buds up our
ears during the morning walk, stealing furtive glances at the mobile screen
(placed opportunely on the thighs) during office meetings, gadgets have become
an extended appendage of our body. I am sure you have read about a man who took
a selfie with the corpse of a relative and posted it on the facebook. Sad that
there is no option to click ‘dislike’. This selfie craze completely beats me.
Is there really a craze or it is just a media hype, I am not really sure. Don’t
you think selfie is self-love, an unhealthy narcissistic trend among the youngsters?
If you accept that watching the screens is a normal thing to do, then
there is nothing much to worry. When Wikipedia is the only source of knowledge,
Arnab’s harangue genuine fount of news, PlayStation is what children call games
and TV room the sole place of family assembly, all is well. No chirping of
birds in the morning, no cycling or cricket for the kids, no social life with
friends but for facebook and whatsapp. What really gets my goat is seeing
couples in restaurants or parks busy unto themselves engrossed in their
respective mobiles. What #$%^&# kind of romance is this? Thank god, mobiles
were non-existent during my youth!
Nowadays I sometimes find myself involuntarily reaching to the mobile and checking
for the latest whatsapp messages. Or typing ndtv.com to see the most recent
news. As if CBI is going to be independent or China has relinquished its claim
on Arunachal or Srinivasan has decided to dissociate himself completely from
cricket in a matter of thirty minutes. What rubbish! No wonder I take twice the
time to read one book these days than I used to before the onslaught of
screens. My wife Praneetha who is spectacularly unimpressed by the gadgets is at
peace with her Nokia qwerty mobile, rarely visited facebook page, never-opened
whatsapp and only-when-necessary email account. I am not surprised that she has
much more time than me for morning walk, to read, garden and to go through the
kids’ schedules.
Many of us surf the internet for unnecessary knowledge which we will
never use, fancy products which we will never buy and exotic locales which we
will never visit. But when there is some free time, the laptop is pulled close and we type google! Though internet is a treasure-trove of necessary information, we find it difficult to put a full stop when the essential job is done. Trivial matters become important and we conveniently invent
genuineness of the inevitability of the material we are seeking through the web. The gadgets definitely have their positives. But are they also making us lazy, less-active, hunch-necked, irritable, less-sociable and screen-centred? After all, there is more to life than screens and monitors. As for myself, I do not know when I will be able
to wriggle myself out of this web but I believe that I am making an effort!
