Anshu Koul
The technologies are primarily invented to ease the struggle of human life. New and undesired habits are developing among the consumers. Cellphones were invented to make the communication mobile and keep people stay connected. No doubt, cellphone communication has proven to be a boon. People can stay in touch with their colleagues and near and dear ones, round the clock. However every technology brings with it loads of detrimental habits. For example to start with, it is evident that people are glued to their cellphones these days. Making calls to your relative was a once-a-month affair in the past decade and on the top of that calls used to be concise ones. People used to keep it simple and sweet while making a call. However, these days’ customers do not hesitate in making long duration phone calls to know about the whereabouts of their last blood cousins. This has led to diluting the essence of the phone calls. While many may disagree with this argument but it is a bitter truth we shy to accept. Conversations have become cheap these days both in terms of cost and what transmits between the two ends. It is imperative to mention that all technologies are welcomed in the same fashion. When TVs arrived in the market, people used to speculate that it will destroy the active life of the people. To some extent these predictions have come true, that is why the phrases like couch potatoes and idiot boxes were introduced.
Going few decades back, transistors were taken to the workplace by the people which was looked down by the critic of the times. Similarly some decades back, people were seen whiling away their time over pages of the newspaper under the shades of banyan trees discussing myriad issue.
The poison these days is Cellphones. You can catch any youngster, fiddling with their cellphones. May it be schools or colleges or office, people are always up to something on their smartphones.
The situation has worsened to the extent that there is a need to impart cellphone courtesies. Parents do hand over their cellphones to their toddlers and teens to keep them busy. Some parents do show off how apt their teens are at handling smartphones. Being against technology is being regressive.
The key to this menace is how you handle technology. In fact everything has its pros and cons. As they say excess of anything is bad and everything should be in moderation, even moderation should be in moderation. Smartphones are like ocean of information; it is up to us how we tap this resource.
(The writer teaches at St Xaviers )
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