Curious Case of the New World

‘Life is not that simple as it used to be’, commented my grandmother while I was busy breathing the virtual world on my Smartphone sitting next to her. To her disagreement, I opposed ‘Not at all, today, we have all the advanced technologies which are built to make our lives convenient. So, how could it become part of the problem?’ ‘True that, but the problem isn’t the technology instead the way how you are feeding over it’, she explained.

Actually, it is worthwhile analyzing two contrasting perspectives in depth, to understand the broadness of the larger debate. There is always much more than what we may or may not consider relevant. It is the selective absorption of facts accordingly i.e. putting a blind eye to things that we don’t consider important. In fact, the word ‘relevance’ itself is born out of perspectives based on said ideologies or thoughts. Probably, it is the major reason behind why the over dependence on technology remains an out-of-context topic.

Technology is omnipresent and currently it has very much to do with our lifestyle. In our everyday life, we feed on technology almost like our food and now it has become an integral part of our lives. Or just remember the time when you jumped with ecstasy after breaking into a public WiFi free of cost. It is rather impossible to imagine life without technology. There are certain symptoms like getting anxious on not find your phone around (leaving it on silent is a sure nightmare) or just forgetting it at home might be another thing that may give your heart skip a beat. Our over-dependence on technology results in taking things for granted. The present generation adapts to technology like never before, for them it is really a simple task to get their hands-on latest gadgets or using the trending app on their Smartphone. True, globalization has indeed transformed the world into a global village. Things can be transferred instantly from one corner to another with the blink of an eye. One moment, someone develops a technology and the very next moment it is innovated and diffused around the world.

Although, the main purpose of technology is to make our life easier, but the opinions on technology are very diverse. Here, technology and digitization has bridged the gap, helping us to reach out people and spreading our message effortlessly among the masses. Today, social media removes all barriers: geographic, societal or cultural. It gives us the power to communicate to anyone, anytime thus creating a permanent platform for communication. But, does that really help when we stop connecting with people in the real world. Isn’t that a harmful consequence of the advanced technology?

Beside the gap, today everyone has the ability to be the source of knowledge because internet has provided us the power to publish. Thus, the credibility of knowledge creator is important than ever before. On internet, hoaxes are believed to spread like a wildfire. You may never know what is true and what isn’t. The constant information overload is taking us nowhere. We ourselves are the creators and victims of this overload.

So, whether technology is simplifying our life, or creating new challenges and stress for us, totally depends on how we act and interact with them. As the technology solves our one problem, we immediately come up with another new problem. It is essential to note that no technology will ever be able to satisfy our constant emerging needs. However, allowing technology to make our life easier will do, just by focusing on the basics of life instead of getting manipulated by materialistic things. Learning to use technology to our own advantage will benefit without actually getting distracted to its flamboyance.  

Even the great Scientist Albert Einstein feared the technology. Once, he said

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiot

s”.

That quote stands so relevant in the era of smart phone and dumb people.