Tech, Gadget and You

Sitting at home in our couches in front of a television, personalised computer or a mobile device listening to the business captains talking about the fourth industrial revolution driven using digital platforms, makes it essential that we keep pace with the technological advancements.

From governments to corporate bigwigs, they talk about investing in AI (Artificial Intelligence), Blockchain and the most happening tech trend the development of 5G and 5G gadgets to expand their public outreach and to promote their businesses on the vast digital market. It creates a virtual connection between the promoter and the user.

Social media plays a major role in the exercise. It acts as a catalyst for a brand, a company, a politician or a celebrity to create a virtual presence and interact with their target user base and followers.

Not only that, it has become a medium to connect with a person’s kith and kin, a means to follow fields of interest and curate their feed, a channel to keep up with the happenings around the planet and a tool to carry out other tasks of personal interest.

Fulfilling such diverse needs and wants of the daily life of a human being on an everyday basis, social media and entertainment platforms have made themselves an indispensable part of our daily routine.

In the present day, with all gadgets going the ‘smart’ route a host of functions are made accessible to us at the tip of our fingers. With a gadget the size of a pocket available to us and being portable in nature; it opens up new horizons to learn, earn and entertain on the virtual platforms while being on the go.

In this effort to be continually connected virtually with the world using ‘smart’ devices we lose connection with reality. With a million apps and a glut of social media sites offered by the Android and iOS platforms on the ‘smart’ phones to make your mind fuzzy and the need to appear woke among our peers has led to people having a better relationship with their gadgets rather than human beings.

This overdependency of individuals on gadgets and social media has become a hurdle in the way of relationships. We might be able to connect with friends and family who live away from us in a jiffy using these virtual social media platforms but communication lines within the family have broken down. Instead of a family spending time together, each member using a device sitting in a corner of the home has become a common sight.

Lack of interpersonal relationships in the family sometimes drives people into the throes of loneliness. Not only does it affect relationships at home, but the withdrawal symptoms can also spill over to other relations as well. In such instances, solitude becomes and a constant companion and human interaction can dampen the spirits.

The other side of the coin is just as dangerous. Some people to stay relevant on social media and have decent visibility on such platforms constantly keep updating about what they eat, what they wear, where they go and every other minute detail of there day. In this process of putting up content via pictures and videos on social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat they discard their personal safety. Such stunts have resulted in deaths of people while clicking selfies or shooting videos in very unfortunate circumstances.

This addiction to social media and technological gadgets has had a debilitating effect on individuals in different methods. The thrall of entertainment platforms and craze of relevance of social media platforms has driven people away from each other dragging them into a vortex of the virtual world and cutting them off from their needs pushing them into a depressed state of mind.

It has also succeeded in creating a psyche where an individuals’ need to be constantly present online to let his presence be known has the person constantly checking in and logging out just to figure if there is any activity on his posts. The number of likes and shares obtained provide a person validation about their self-esteem which otherwise is quite low because of the harsh self-critique imposed upon them by themselves.

The negative impact on the health and relations of an individual due to addiction to web platforms is the impact of a lack of balance between control and contentment. That is a lack of understanding between the mind and the heart. It makes us a tool in the hands of technology. But is ignoring technology an answer to it?

With the world bodies, governments and businesses putting enough stress on digitizing and automating process ignoring technology and being an ostrich about it is not a solution. The solution lies in making the very same social media platforms in a constructive and judicious manner. You must become the master of the social media platforms and use them as tools to achieve your means rather than the other way around.