Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Disconnected in this connected world

In the last two decades, technology has evolved so much and so fast. Our world today can’t be imagined without our LCD TV (LED/SMART TV in some cases), home theatre systems, laptops, Blackberry, smart phones etc. The good old alarm clock which would wake up the entire building has been replaced by the ringtones in the cell phone. Good old letters have been replaced by emails, greeting cards by e-greetings and a lot of emotions by “emoticons” - impulses and electronic waves which now convey “feelings”?
Our generation I think is the most fortunate one since we are witness to this transition. We have seen the best of both the worlds…
I take pride in having been born in an age where the ringing of the door-bell by the postman would get us off our chairs and running to open the door. The anticipation, the quickening of the heartbeat, the wait for the quintessential dog-eared inland letter card –that brought news of family and friends from distant lands.
I remember how the results of our final exams would come by the post, usually by 2nd or 3rd of May. It was always around 11:00 am that the postman would come ringing his bicycle bell announcing his arrival. Since most of the kids in the building were in same school, all our results would come together. My home was on the ground floor, so all would just assemble there to see their results. The postman would wait in anticipation since he would expect some ‘bakshish’ in lieu of the good news in the exam results. He would also provide his pearls of wisdom in case we were not happy with our results, and also give some sound advice to our parents in case they looked disappointed…
Today kids and parents view the results on a dull looking machine which has no emotions, will not be happy or sad for you after you see your results, will not smile or give you any word of encouragement. Nothing - except blips on an inanimate screen.
I remember spending hours in an Archie’s store, going through at least 30-40 cards to find that one card which would echo my sentiments exactly. The excitement, the patience, the satisfying feeling…can that be matched with sending an e-greeting??? Nah!
The question is not about how good or bad technology is in our lives…no one can debate on the positive impact of technology…the question is that have we stopped doing those small things that once made so much of difference to us and those around us?
Somehow in this highly digitized world, we have become more robotic and less in touch with our human side. We have much more information than we will ever need at our fingertips, but we have no time to meet someone to have a conversation and share that information with, unless of course it’s the grainy, halting image of a “friend” over the webcam on our laptop screen. You can’t shake hands with a screen now, can you?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to just pick up the phone and call a long lost friend instead of sending them a text on BBM…wouldn’t it be fun to walk into a store and pick that one wonderful friendship/romantic card and send it by post…wouldn’t it just be great to meet a friend in a café and share a coffee/drink reminiscing the past than just poking them on FB…
Somewhere we have started spending more time on social networking which I feel has challenged the very notion of time and space and has put communication into a hyperdrive mode.
Our world is all connected but are we not really
dis-connected???

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