Sunday, October 28, 2018

Perils Of Social Media And Free Internet In India


While I am down with cold and cough and enjoying this sedentary life for past 2 days, I thought of livening up my blog after a long hiatus. 

As we are living in a free world and in a free society and are always surrounded by gadgets and internet we often fail to understand that we are missing more than we are thinking we are gaining.

We are earning and working extra hard to upgrade our mobile phones but not to upgrade our education or food or to insure health. We pretend to be a having lot of information but when it comes to knowledge it is scant.

Our priorities are changing. We are making new friends whom we may never meet and losing people whom we have known since childhood. We seem to have forgotten the word repair – if phone is damaged we get a new one, jeans is torn we order a new one, shirt button has come off, we buy a new shirt. Gone are the days when one cycle was used for 2 generations. Internet is taking away our life and we are not able to notice it. Everything is available at the touch of few buttons. We are losing our patience and it has a broader repercussions. If friendship is not working or there is issue in relationship we don’t come together to amend it but try to find ways to get away with it.

People go to places to take photos and not to enjoy the beauty of it. By the time they are back home they only have snaps and can’t remember how the place like was. They will record the fight between two parties and also broadcast it live but wouldn’t come forward to rescue them. Word fear has come to our life and empathy has gone from our dictionary.

Internet has almost taken our most beloved possession – bargaining skills. It indeed is a skill. We order everything online now, even groceries. I feel sense of pride if I can bargain even if it is a few bucks. J

Internet is full of fake news, biased information and preconceived thoughts and we are so credulous to believe whatever is served by internet that we don’t even check the veracity of the truth. We have to check from so many different sources to understand the truth and sometimes that also is not enough.

Use internet and social media wisely. Let us not become servitude to the technology. It is not bad but if not used wisely, it can get worse.

Take care and Happy Diwali!

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