In the current digital era, the highly networked age, everyone you know or do not know has a connected device at hand. Mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and personal computers are everywhere around us. You have them at home, at work and everywhere in between. You can reach anyone across the world at the speed of thought! You can call, leave a message, email, text, and chat or get on social networking sites and apps and share. Boy, are you connected! You have the reach at your fingertips that, a couple of decades ago was only dreamt of.
But, do you really connect? The human mind is so flirtatious that it cannot afford to stay put on one interaction for longer than a few seconds to perhaps, a couple of minutes. It has to keep moving, has to find new interests and fleet to the next as the previous one starts to wane away. That is what the rapid and overwhelming influx of information and our highly networked times has done to us. How many times have you glanced at your mobile phone today? Checked that Facebook app, that LinkedIn page, those Twitter tweets for the nth time yet?
There is no denying the fact that what technology has enabled is highly valuable. To reach someone on the other side of the planet in real-time is immense. It has brought us all together in various aspects of life, personal and professional, and made the world smaller. It has made us one people and erased boundaries and other demarcations that once divided us. And, in every sense of what it set out to do, it has enabled us to make progress as better educated, aware, enlightened and open-minded humans that care about, not just what’s around us, but across the world.
And, this ability, in the larger scheme of things is highly efficient and valuable. However, what it has also done is, robbed us of what we once cherished and valued. True social interactions, in-person meetings where we greeted each other and shared bonhomie, family and friends get-togethers where we cherished knowing each other and encouraged finer aspects of our personalities, social events where we met, talked, shared opinions and thoughts, all those are not as frequent or as rich as they once were. Perhaps, it is now that we reminisce about the value of what we are continuing to lose. Think about it, you live in the same home but communicate with your spouse and kids via devices. The family room conversations, the dinner table chitchat, the long ride interactions and coming together to participate in events that enriched us and strengthened our bonds are becoming rare; perhaps only on special occasions do these occur, if at all. It’s in our best interest to save these and cultivate them, not just in ourselves but in future generations for they enriched us and defined our very existence, as people, as those who loved each other for what we were and strived to excel.
Technology has to be leveraged and used to enrich our lives, but we shouldn’t become a slave to it. It takes a conscious effort to do that and it’s in the best interest of us, humans to let it not rule our lives. And who better to begin this reversal than you. Take up the challenge and bring life back to you and those around you.