At a recent party I was very cruelly reminded of how dependent I am on, not just my phone, but more importantly, the Internet services that are on my phone! A little background story before I start rambling about how technology rules our life and the usual which goes with that topic.
Background Story
A very close friend, also at the party, got an emergency call from his mom about his paternal uncle who wouldn't make it through the night. He rushed off with me yelling at him to keep me informed of the situation and 'Call me if you need me!". The next 30 minutes were passing very slowly and every 5 minutes I kept checking my phone to see if he 'Whatsapped'. Another friend told me "Don't call him, send him a message". Wise Advice! Dumb ME! I sent him a long message on Whatsapp detailing how not to be worried, everything will be fine, I'm there for you if you need and the likes. However, my net refused to work so my whatsapp messages weren't getting delivered. I panicked! 'What if he needs me', 'Why aren't the messages going through', 'Oh no! my phone is F****D'.
Few people around me felt so bad that they started offering their phones 'Yahan se call karle', 'Use my phone na'. Almost 100 hours later (20 minutes is more believable, but it seriously felt 100 hours in my head), I actually turned to someone next to me and said "Should I just send him a text message? If my net isn't working, at least my texts will go through. Right?" This woman was shocked, more like appalled at what I just said. She said one simple line which got me thinking (and hence the blog), she said, "Wow! You're so dependent on Whatsapp, you forgot about good old text messages."
Back to the Future
Now that you know the background story, my ramblings begin.
My mom keeps cribbing about how "When we were kids, we would play outside, climb trees etc. Today's kids only want their PS3, Facebook, Whatsapp. We would go to meet people, not friend them online", I think by the time we have kids we will fondly remember the times when "1000 free SMS's would mean talking to FRIENDS!" or "When we were kids there wasn't any video calling. We could only hear the voices of our friends. You kids nowdays, you don't appreciate the little things only."
Times change, people evolve but is our current evolution or adaptation an improvement from the past? How many of you are in touch with old friends but only via FB and Whatsapp? How many hours do you spent talking to random people on Twitter, instead of having a face-to-face discussion with the person sitting at the side of you? How many of you dependent on Whatsapp to message people? When was the last time you met your old buddies?
These questions plague my mind, because I know the answer to each and everyone one of them. I am in touch with friends from School only through FB, not even Whatsapp. I go out with friends and keep having conversations with random people on Twitter. I only message people via Whatsapp, even if its for business purposes. The last time I met a friend from my childhood, even though we live in the same city, was at the SHM Concert in Noida!
These realisations make me cringe at how dependent I am on the WORLD WIDE WEB and its millions of arms, legs, feet, whatever body part you might want to call all these networking platforms. Body parts because their the closest to human contact most of us have in today's day and age. And that thought makes me afraid for the coming generations!
