Recent research shows that an average user of ‘world-in-palm’ smartphones touches the screen around 2617 times or 2.42 hours in a day and that for the heaviest users the same is in the ratio of 5,427 touches or 3.75 hours in a day. Nowadays, there is hardly any person whose morning does not start with WhatsApp culminating with last touch of WhatsApp button before going to retire for the day in bed. Although the world now-a-days seemingly is to be in one’s palm with whatever little occurring in one part of the world immediately being made viral/known to the other part of the world within a fraction of seconds which was not at all believable or could have been thought of being possible in yesteryears, yet it can be said to a much extent that such an advancement has only reduced the human behaviour similar to that of an ape. Or, is it that since human race originated from the ape, so is getting attracted to the same ape culture again!
It is a common sight nowadays on the streets to see a solitary person seemingly speaking to himself and acting somewhat crazy but later only to be found that he is not lonely but instead busy chatting with some other person be it his friends, relations or any other fellow either in his city of dwelling or in some other corner of the world made possible through the mode of this smart device called mobile or colloquially termed Cell. Be it a person travelling by bus, metro, rail or even airplane, it is a common sight nowadays to see almost everyone glued to some such mod gadgets unconcerned or seemingly careless about the happenings nearby busy with one’s own self, thereby secluded physically from others sitting nearby, at the same time engaged with someone sitting in some corner of the world. They wake up to the happening nearby or come to senses of such occurrence in nearby surrounding, that too majority of such tech-savvy people, not with the intention of helping out the victim but instead to get first hand video clipping of such incident or accident and immediately viral it in the social media with no loss of time.
One of the other such crazy behaviors, is when one finds person carrying expensive, state-of-the-art technology and updated version of I-phone or other expensive gadgets but at the same time, seen bargaining with roadside vegetable vendor to reduce the price of a kilo of vegetable or fruit. Strange, isn’t it?
Similarly, we find enormous number of people busy with ear phone wires inserted into their ears or almost munching on the wires with their teeth to speak on the connector and behaving as if they have come from a different world or as if some aliens from some other planet on a trip to the Planet Earth, whereas the ground reality is that most of them are travelling in a crowded bus, tightly packed suburb train trying, or rather struggling, to make their both ends meet. Why all this outwardly show for? What do they want to prove? Are they the busiest people in the world or rather the most-sought after being in this world or, rather a sort of ventilation to wade away their feeling of inferiority complex. The concept of using ear phone or buds is rather riskier to say the least as other than shying oneself away from the people around, such gadgets also go to make one almost half-deaf and invites serious accidents or danger not only to one’s life but even for others, as concentration definitely gets distracted.
Then, there is this new concept of taking ‘Selfie’, which again is emerging as a killer habit. Day-in-and-day-out, news reports abound about many of the people losing their lives while attempting a ‘Selfie’ shot some falling into the river, some from the mountain or run over by the passing train while taking selfie, etc. What is all these crazy behaviors meant for? Is it fashion syndrome at the cost of one’s own life ?
Last but not the least, there should be an absolute ban on usage of such gadgets particularly at work place as it not only consumes lots of man hours but is also irritating to the customers, when one is managing a public dealing desk. In many of the developed countries across the world, a scheduled time for smoking or going to canteen, etc. is granted during office hours. Similarly, the internet facilities should be restricted in office just for official work and should not be enabled for surfing the internet or use Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Twitter, or other such social media platforms. Such a step would definitely save on lots of man hour wastages in offices and definitely improve on employees’ output.
