Technology Virus...

While driving to the office today, I heard the RJ of the FM channel enthusiastically promoting a Smart Watch which can use your gestures and do lot of work – turn on or turn off the music, switch off or switch on lights, fans, TV etc and that the listeners must check this watch out and buy.

I ask WHY?

We anyways have already become so lazy thanks to so many gadgets around us in the name of Technology Revolution. Now get a watch and keep on sitting on your couches and make gestures. How many new diseases and disorders have been introduced over the past few years just because we don’t get enough sun light, we don’t move more often, we keep on sitting in our chairs for long hours, we watch iPads and Laptops continuously.

WhatsApp – Almost like Oxygen for us. Think about the pros – you stay connected to everyone, share photos, videos instantly, have a video call.

Think about the cons – I btw, realized them just now.

You get a forwarded message created by God knows who. You read it, laugh at it or cringe on the ‘severity’ or ‘gravity’ of seriousness of the message, long press the message and forward it to others. How many times do we check if the message is true? We spread rumors, fear and wrong information.

What about the spoken and written English skills? Gone down the drain. Just notice next time you speak to someone in English. Most of us now use slangs and Hinglish. Why? Because, most of the time we are forwarding the messages. 

In the name of ‘staying connected’, we ‘talk’ throughout WhatsApp and at that time who cares about the grammar? I am sure this post also have lot of grammatical errors.

Do these messages convey the correct emotions at all? When I don’t want to speak something directly, simple – just send it as a message. Let the other person read it and comprehend the emotion and reply back. Then we can tackle the further conversation accordingly. Now, I have realized that change in myself. Most of the time I end up saying things differently from what I actually meant them and is most of the time mistaken in wrong way and then I fret why the other person never gets my point. It’s because I wanted to say something with a different emotion and since I am practically out of touch of etiquettes of ‘talking’, I end up saying it in a completely different tone.

My father worked in a bank for the longest part of his career. I remember him talking about his clients. Regular clients. They would exchange greetings on festivals. Now, I don’t know any of my bank people. For the sake of it, I have designated Relationship managers for each of my bank accounts but they call me up once in a year – which I think is a part of their annual process. I do get automated festival greetings from my bank but I can’t respond back to them. I don’t know them and haven’t seen them ever.

Why walk down to our grocery store when you can order things online or get them home delivered by calling them up? I remember seeing one of our grocery store man getting married, giving sweets to us on the birth of his son and seeing him growing up before moving out of my home for my post-graduation.

Birthdays don’t excite me anymore. Not that since I am growing older I don’t like them but that excitement which used to be there to wait for the post man to start delivering the birthday cards and letters much earlier than actual birthday, later people calling in for wishing – that is not there. Yes, we do get messages and cake photos but hardly anyone CALLS UP to speak and convey their birthday wishes. On top of it, I post on my Facebook wall at the end of my birthday – ‘Thanks all for your lovely wishes. They mean a lot to me. They made my day’. I confess here. I am thanking only handful of those people from the bottom of my heart. For others, it’s just a customary step that has to be done being on social media.

I laugh my heart out when I see so many younger cousins/nephews/nieces of mine who, once they get married, post such emotional and loving messages thanking the Almighty for blessing them with the best spouse in the entire world and 100s of people liking it and posting ‘awww’ and ‘best couple in the world’ comments on that. Though I really do wish that they actually mean what they are saying and that they continue having that love but sad reality is that wait for completion of one year and no more thanking to God. I have seen that most of the time, the couples who are away from the social media are the ones who truly walk the talk of loving their partners in true way.

We meet someone after a long time and end up clicking pictures in every possible angle just to post those pictures with adorable messages on our message groups and Facebook walls. That long awaited meet could be enjoyed more without the phones or cameras and with a lot of coffee and talking.

We get to see so many horrible accidents and fights on social media. Why? Because people are capturing the videos instead of saving the victims. Something funny happens all of a sudden, it’s okay to capture it. But someone being shot at, beaten up mercilessly, being kidnapped… shall we not stop that instead of pulling out our Smart phones and capturing the act?

I sometimes feel that we were okay without our smart phones and without free Wi Fi hotspots. Simple phones which were used only for calling and messaging were enough for us.