Life is full of beautiful and attractive things. You try it and realise that you love it. Day by day, you only engage in that thing, your sole focus is on exploring more about that. Gradually, you start getting disconnected with other things that your life offers you. You only get pleasure of doing that one particular thing. When you are not permitted or are deprived of that thing then you start having intense craving for that thing.
This whole situation refers to addiction. The person becomes out of control and compulsively uses that thing. When we hear about addiction, drugs and other substances addiction and abuse automatically comes into our minds. Well, drug addiction and abuse are known in our society to have been used and harms it causes.
I am referring to something less common but which is gaining momentum in this technology-driven world: technology addiction or to put it simply, smartphone addiction.
Due to our workaholic life and the notion of ease that we are gaining from technology, we are doing less of physical activity. We want everything at our fingertips. Earlier this was just an expression but now it has been turned into reality. Everything truly is at our fingertips ! Earlier phones and computers were used by few to do few things but now almost all the households whether rich or poor have a smartphone. The availability to all and the ease of access to plethora of information has made smartphones gain popularity. People not just want a simple smartphone but a branded one with exclusive features.
My favorite proverb is “Anything in excess is harmful.” Smartphones have lot of benefits as it has connected the world, made information available to everyone and led to human development. But if used in excess, it can harm the body.
Now a days, people are getting addicted to smartphones where people wake up with it, do all their daily stuffs, talk with it( virtual assistant like Siri), become frustrated if they don’t get enough likes on facebook or hearts on instagram and in a way live a virtual life.
This type of addiction causes headaches, eye infection, lethargy, obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases not just in young and working people but also on children. The children are affected the most because at a young age they are exposed to technology and it causes so much harm. The workaholic parents use smartphone and video games as a medium to engage their child without realizing that they are exposing their children to chronic disease like eye disease, getting glasses at tender ages, obesity and irritated behavior.
In Dan Brown’s latest book ORIGIN, he explores the notion of human being getting controled by technology. We are living in a scary world where the thing invented by us is posing a threat to us. Use of technology is not wrong because it has helped in exploring so much. But excess use of that technology in day to day lives where we get disconnected from real world and start living a virtual life is not right.
There are certain things one can’t replace like water or air that nature provides so we should use technology to exceed the availability of natural world to us rather than living a virtual life. Don’t get dependent on smartphones and live a virtual life but be aware of reality and live a real life in natural world where you form relationships and enjoy little things because you have got one life so live it to the fullest.