By: Maryam Hedayat
Around 52.4% of the global online population access internet from their mobile devices and more than half of the global population is estimated to go online using mobile devices by 2020.
LIBYA: The world is just a ‘click’ away from us. Now everything and everyone is available at the touch of a button, Bored? Just a click and all your friends in front of you, shopping mood, click and the varieties and unlimited collection on your screen, want to play video games late night, click the button and vast collection of games available, want to have pizza, click and the pizza at your doorstep, problem in finding the answer of a question, just a click, the google will provide you the answer.
Simply, the computer and internet have made life at ease by making information more easily accessible and effortlessly reachable with different people around the world. They are the center of our daily routine and have changed the way we socialize.
A 6 month ago I asked my sister in India, “Is there any official holiday on Monday in India? “Hey! Google it” got the reply from her.
Ah! Nowadays people rely more on technologies rather than their own brains to solve an issue. It is a fact that these growing technologies are also the invention of great human brains, they help us to solve the problem more easily than humans. However, if this condition persists then the future will be like mere robots doing any work without thinking.
We never enjoy the little things in life anymore because technology can give us it all, in one click. I can’t remember the last time I ever looked for a word in a dictionary. It’s long I have written something with pen on paper. I even find it difficult to sign on a paper.
Whether we are asleep or awake, we are online or offline, we are constantly in state of virtual world. We don’t talk, we ‘tweet ‘or WhatsApp, our Facebook update is enough to tell about our success and failure to the world. Well! There is nothing wrong with using those methods of communication, but they lack emotions and feelings.
Instead of advancing through internet and technology, we are moving towards dependency and developing addiction. Though our smartphone, computer or tablet is enormously a productive tool, but obsessive use of such devices is interfering our daily routine, work, education, health and also relationship.
Sadly, we enjoy talking more to the person online than the one sitting beside us. Now hardly people find time to visit each other, and even if they visit, instead of asking the host’s well-being, they immediately ask the internet password to be connected all the time.
Virtual world provides people imaginary friend or partner. It’s like a dream planet full of charm and appeal, even though they never meet face to face. Unfortunately, people enjoy online relation more than the real interactions. In many cases, people neglect time with their actual family to be with their unrealistic world.
Obviously, most of the time chatting online frustrates and confuses people. We just chat without any sentiment and feeling, because while talking online we never see the expression and the mood of the person on the other side.
We no longer enjoy communicating with each other over a cup of coffee in our drawing room, in its place we just click a button and we are straightaway connected with each other. There’s nothing like human interaction. The emotionless information or the unknown person online looks more fascinating than the friend or the partner sitting beside us.
The most disastrous effect of this addictive behavior is that whenever there are tragic incidents like murder, accident, calamity, people will immediately take their mobiles and start videoing or taking pictures, instead of helping the individuals.
Recently I heard about the latest technology “Alexa”.
Wow! Amazing innovation! Now this device not only assists and talks with humans but also helps us in home automation system…no need to move to switch on the lights, draw curtains, open or close the windows, doors and so on.
In fact, the technologies are not only making us mentally reliant but at the same time physically dependent too. Perhaps enormous majority of humanity embraces technology like it is their next breath of oxygen. Without it they feel they might die.
We have started giving up our ability and skills to function in daily life, and allowing technologies to rule over our every move. Thus we are slowly giving up our freedom.
According to a research, there are now 3.74 billion Internet users in the world as at March 2017. Around 52.4% of the global online population access internet from their mobile devices and more than half of the global population is estimated to go online using mobile devices by 2020.
It is not the amount of time spent on the internet that is particularly worrying, rather it is how the Internet is being used in shaping our mind and behavior that matters. We feel as if we have moved on to another planet far away from human world of feeling and emotion. Human success in technology fails us to be humane.
The author of this article lives in Libya.
