We know we are running in this life requesting to thrive with money, fame, freedom, and exposure. There are a few of us who command life and steer away from top concerns like it is nothing. Always looking after yourself and family is a good thing. Thinking of being selfish in such a way that only your inner circle are the ones who are living in this world, is totally absurd. The point I am trying to make in my article here is, we are humans and what is happening in the last 20 years is that technology is ripping every part of humans in our life.
In the last decade, we started to use smartphones considerably more as they were introduced at the end of the last decade. This adoption of extra device in life made us stay ourselves away from ourselves. This has become the prime solution for anyone’s loneliness. What we are not understanding is that this is making all of the sick. Pushing away from people instead of connecting with them more. A user who uses social media thinks that he/she is connecting with the world but actual fact that is happening is, he/she might be getting connected with people around the world but what about the people around him?
Social media are literally pushing you away from people who are with you, near you, and pulling people who can be the reason to lose your mind. I am not telling using smartphones and social media is bad. What I am trying to imply here is that there should be a limit to what we do with or how we use technology that is constantly developing exponentially. The true nature of human is not being used correctly. We are not machines to constantly go on with the life-like we are already controlled by the people who are sitting at the top level.
Let’s analyze these 2 sceneries together: (These I have considered in their utmost levels)
- Staying away from technology makes our life disconnected from the world.
- Being in technology makes us disconnect from our natural human life.
#1 Staying away from technology makes our life disconnected from the world
Well, remember when we use to play games with our friends and families? There was a celebration in every holiday season. Our whole family uses to come together and the fun part was the house that was filled with happiness. Great cooking, Grandfather’s stories about how he used to flirt with our granny in their 20s, Stories that were filled with lots of morals, inspirations. All of these were there without a single device near to us. It is like we lived in the countryside with that work disconnection with no disruptions from our debt owners.
This was the life of kids who were born before 1995. We were indulging in celebrations without much stress. Every task was divided into our elders and they use to take care of that and also they would teach them about their experiences.
The above words of remembrance are one good thing about staying away from technology. We were happy and well educated but up to what extent? Ask this question if you are born before 1995.
“I wish I’d have gotten the chance like my son, my brother, or like my younger peers who are brilliantly smart where they started learning to program or they started to take classes online when they were just 3 years or 10 years.” Haven’t we thought about this? We did.
#2 Being in technology makes us disconnect from our natural human life
As per the research from the RescueTime app team, one of the iOS and Android applications. An average user uses a little over 3 hours 15 mins every day of screen time and the top 20% uses shockingly around 4 and a half hours per day. This stat might be an interesting fact since the advent of technology in our lives. If you imagine a software engineer, accountant, or any employee, they use more than 12 to 13 hours of their day using technology like smartphones, desktops, laptops, online meetings. Especially in this COVID times, I am sure all of us use at least 10 hours of our day in screen time that is more than 1/3 rd of our time.
Using technology is often making us be indulged more in online activities than offline activities. This is making things difficult for the people around you, think of your parents, children, partner. Oh, wait!! These days even they will get their own devices. If you want to talk to the person in the next room, take out your phone and text them via WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, or iMessage and they will reply to you back. This is how it has become. Instead of walking slowly toward them and speaking with them with a smile on your face, you are texting them with emojis. This is what technology brings us. But, think of this, what if there is no technology or Internet to connect us all together.
Do you think people who are working from now would be having their jobs in this pandemic? Would companies have survived? So, technology may push humans away but it also helped us to survive in these difficult times. Without that, we all would have been out of sorts in life without directions.
Comparisons
This topic is very much debatable and the debate is going on all around the world about The Advent of Technology On Humanity.
Don’t you think we have had enough of technology advancements to go on for at least the next 1 year without any improvements? Can’t we make it the existing tools and products more stable? What if we pause our progress for next year? We maybe not enough advanced in exploring space technology and building telescopes that can predict alien lives or elements on the surface of the planet. We might not there yet but how the world is going now is messing things up. If we compare the difference between 1960 to 2017, there has been a huge increase in the number of phone users and fixed-line users. If we consider the last 7–8 years of data on increase in wireless technology, we will get shocked. The below charts will explain it to us.
The introduction of technology in the lives of people has increased as per the research in certain age groups, this is according to the “Life Satisfaction in the Internet Age — Changes in the Past Decade,” published in Computers in Human Behavior, 2016. According to this paper, Using the internet makes people happier, especially seniors and those with health problems that limit their ability to fully take part in social life, says the study paper. To make this more interesting, this also says that Internet access among seniors rose from 8 to 34 percent between 2003 and 2012; among the younger group, access increased from 44 to 78 percent. Therefore, the digital divide grew during the study period.
If you are smart enough, you will understand how technology is impacting our life. My point here is not about minimizing technology it is about how useful it is to certain age groups and for a young age it is not so important. My above hypothesis is all about putting a break for 1 year in any technological advancement and shifting the concentration toward human development. If we can just connect with important things and let the updates go in this duration, this will help our humanity in numerous ways. For example, consider all smartphone manufacturers to stop releasing their new flagship products for 1 year. Even computer manufacturers or application teams all around the world and survive with what exactly we really have at this moment. This will not only improve the lives of people, it will also help protect our environment if these companies invest in the growth of the environment. I am not telling that they should stop their manufacturing these gadgets, I am telling instead of investing in improving technology or adding new features to the products, they can just go ahead with the existing one and see it in the markets.
Think, if there is an innovation pause. Children will connect with their parents instead of going through their phones with all extra updates. A small change can make a huge difference in well being. The people who are chasing around flagship devices will stop their pursuit and get the satisfaction of settling for the device that is a flagship for the next 2 years.
It is not so easy to adopt but if all companies come together and say, let’s contribute to humanity instead of fighting to be on top, our world can be a much much better place. This is not so difficult, isn’t it? If we stop add new features or inventions for a year, Earth will not stop rotating or even Universe will not come and ask us why did we stop. Once we think of our world as a family and all of us are one, there is no question of competition or to be on top. The only thing matters are, how we are moving forward in life as a collective individual. How much impact we are making in the life of others around us.
Conclusion
Well, now I have made my point and it is left to us on how we are going to do it. To make this world an even better place, we can think of unlimited possibilities. Pausing our progress is sometimes the best solution as individually we pause for sometime when things are not well. When we are facing a crisis in our personal lives, we do take a step back and assess the situation and then move forward — This principle is true even for all humanity. Currently, we are facing a crisis. Many of us may think that there is nothing wrong: I can say, we are wrong in this. We are failing to look at the bigger picture here as we are all busy making our own life stable. We all need to be prepared for what next to come in 20 years from now.
Lot’s stand together and work together for our future generations. We are here because our previous generation of people worked so hard and left their legacy. We should do the same for the next generations.
Keep Reading, Share your ideas with me and let’s discuss them together, harithsa@thenexteam.com
