Are We Technocrats Or Techno-captives?

The Internet came as a boon to us in the 1990s but has come to dominate our lives only in the 20th century. So deep are the shackles of Digital media that they have encroached something as fundamental as communication and physical interaction. People handle their businesses, hire and fire their staff, interact with their near and dear ones over the media. They have even started sending formal invitations for weddings and ceremonies over Whatsapp.

From websites allowing us to buy all supplies of our daily needs online, there are apps telling us how many steps we walked today; because apparently, counting has become a cumbersome task. While this may have eased many functions and allowed people to work from their homes, sitting in the comfort of their air conditioned rooms, underneath their sheets or on their patio, away from the pollution, office politics and various commuting issues. It surely has come to defy the social milieu and the culture of growing via sharing and receiving first-hand information.

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The idea of having a perfect body shape and how one’s metabolism works is although subjective but somehow the digital world seems to have transcended that boundary.

It is high time we ponder upon a few things.

The technology we thought or feel, we are using to make our lives easier and more efficient, has started to take its toll on us. It is attempting to reshape our social behaviour and reality. Before taking vacations or going to social events, we need to make sure that we do not pack or wear the same apparel or accessories which have made their way to Facebook in the past.

Evidently, it has become more convenient to spend an awful lot on what goes over the body than on what does inside it. Everyone today strives to get the “perfect body shape,” and eat capsules like Fat-Go, or don’t eat food altogether to “fit” in that category. The idea of having a perfect body shape and how one’s metabolism works is although subjective but somehow the digital world seems to have transcended that boundary. In the culture of being increasingly online every day, our normalcy to the acceptability of this intrusion and behavioural correction is scathingly inept.

It is time that we as individuals, realize the difference between the real-world and the digital-world.

Digital media has suffused and perfused into our lives so much so that we believe, maybe evolution has reached its peak. We have never better understood the importance of opposable thumbs than while handling our phones or gaming on our Play Stations; or maybe a new generation is in a place where Work-from-home is preferred and the use of hands have become more pronounced than the use of our feet.  Whatever it may be, it is time that we as individuals, realize the difference between the real-world and the digital-world, restrict to living our lives on social media and stop being on a spectrum of complicity that leads to the demise of our privacy.

Technology is evolving every day. It has become difficult to keep a tab on the myriad of changes that are taking place.

SheThePeople.Tv spoke to Shubhangi Singh, an electrical engineering graduate who recognizes the importance of technology. She exclaims that it has been an incommodious task to keep up with the same lately. She says, “As a recent graduate, I have seen a humongous change in how technology is impacting education and I am sure it does in other sectors also. Technology is evolving every day. It has become difficult to keep a tab on the myriad of changes that are taking place. It will be exciting to know the extent to which humans befriend technology."

Anchal Goswami, who is currently working at an NGO based in Mumbai, believes that technology has substituted her tangible love for books, “Technological Advancement have given me easy access to knowledge but at the same time has taken away my love for books and print media.”

Law undergrad, Ranojoy Middya, wishes he could have spent more time playing outside than on his gadgets. "Being a tech-savvy it is always fascinating to see technology increasing by leaps and bounds. However, having been born in the age of technological revolution, I often wonder what it would have been like to play outside. I have heard the stories of how my parents and grandparents used to pass their leisure time, " he shares with us.

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Divyangna is an intern with SheThePeople.TV