Technology is deeply embedded in all human activities and has become as unavoidable as water, food and shelter. Technologies influence and interfere in every stage of human life. There is no space people have on their own without technology. Modern devices like mobile and screen-based options have rendered more damage to humankind than any other technology. Talking about tech, it was there for many 100s of years. It has travelled with us from the primitive era. It didn’t have any direct control over us humans, but today, it is not the case. It directly affects us. We have no escape. If you have gone through the history of human evolution, you will see that we have had a lot of threats from many things—other animals, water, forest fire, sea, wind, and many more. We have over everything and learned to live parallel, not in their supremacy. Tech is not the case. We are under it.
Interestingly, most people still have no idea about the involvement of technology in their lives. We blame people for being unproductive, lazy, non-creative, and non-progressive, but unknowingly, the device in our hand pulls us back, not the individual’s problem. People with depression lean on mobile for relief, but it is an aggravating drug.
Mobile phones were once associated with humans. Now, humans are identified by the name mobile. We have our masters in our hands.
The majority of the people, I would say 99% of the people who are chained slaves of mobile, don’t know they are! I have heard people saying it’s not that I want to leave the device, but if I do so, I will be very alone in this socially bounded and connected world. Let me tell you, friend, this is a farce and, for some, a misunderstanding. If you quit the smartphone and be a little conventional, I agree that you may be alone and out of the digital world. But, from the outer world, those in the digital world with mobile-addicted lives are also alone in other ways. You are alone in the real world; he is alone in the virtual world. I bet your loneliness is better and is an excellent opportunity to be in bliss.
A friend of mine once told me this. One of his close friends has 20k followers on her Instagram account, and she actively posts pictures and content on social media. She is 24*7 over the phone. But she seems to be depressed and mostly alone lately. Upon asking, she broke down and shared the deep loneliness she suffered. She is consistently praised for her appearances, outfits, videos, and skills in the virtual world and always seems happy on screen. Off-screen, she pathetically craves a good friend. I suggested he tell her to stay away from social media for a while; organically, she will return to normalcy.
Have you considered the reason for their loneliness? Let me tell you. You are a human, and you crave emotional comfort as much as you crave food, maybe more. And the virtual world does not fulfil that. That’s the reason.
This mental trauma that everyone has develops very deeply when u scroll a lot, and all are in the same belt, in this case. Everybody tends to go through some or other trauma, and it’s the rule of nature that we must go through it. We blame all those tangible things or those relationships and emotions and propel as the reason for the same, and it could be I am not delaying that part. No trauma comes without its healing power and solution. But you are a person severely addicted to the technologies, living in a world of virtuality, u are not allowed to heal. The mind gets more tangled up. Scrolling in the blue light will never calm your biological system and, eventually, your brain.
Being social animals, we need emotional bonding with others. We seek attention in other ways. We lean towards something that keeps us engaged or validates our emotions, which is done to a great extent by social media.
The same goes for creativity and productivity. Anything left unused for a more extended period will get rusty, and so will our brains. We rely on mobile devices for anything and everything, and there is no way you can practice your systems to think, calculate, and deduce things.
A clear example I can cite is one of my staff. She has been working with me for the last 8 years. She was a girl with a creative mindset and had good literary abilities, logical reasoning, and problem-solving capacity. I used to multitask a lot in various fields. Back then, she was not using social media other than WhatsApp and was deeply involved in her work and life. I could see now a transition, a shocking change of reduced productivity in her. I used to blame her a lot for the same, but gradually, over time, I understood what I mentioned earlier. It is not an individual problem. It is a plugged-in problem from spending more time on social media. You are not healed properly. Instincts are rudimentary to human nature. But eventually, your output declines.