‘I fear the day technology will surpass human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.’
Albert Einstein foresaw it decades before the likes of twitters and Liposuctions were invented. Now, we are lot more than, a generation of idiots, but we have become a lot less than the men whose deft hands made things grow out of nothingness. We have become a generation of mudslingers who will spit on everything on a Facebook page, with a fervor that will shame the Hulk, but we will do anything to avoid throwing our hands around and have a point made.
Kids in the times of Facebook and hate
They don’t fight, they debate!
Technology dependency has had a lot attention these last few years, with social media addiction now officially a disease. So, if you think all this hullaballoo around tech addiction is overrated, you may be wrong; you may have no idea that you have already become the Einsteinian idiot.
Well, here are a few things to give you a general idea. Let us find out
Is there such a thing as too tech savvy?
1. What do you play? I like to call it the football paradox. Football (the original, not the American one) is slowly becoming popular in our some cricket crazy nations. People, who could not tell a winger from a striker, can recite off lists of whole Spanish league teams, with player positions, salary, transfer records, names of all his girlfriends since Cristiano was 16.
Do they all follow international football regularly? Yes.
Do they play football regularly? One out of twenty, may be.
Do they play FIFA regularly?
More than you can imagine. Trust me it is addictive as hell. Especially, because it is possible to have Messi and Ronaldo in the same team, which is practically impossible in real world until Florentino Perez go crazy!
2. You are more! Who are you? Do you live two lives? Do you have a life? Do you have a Tyler Durden inside of you, cooler and swashbuckling which comes out when you are hidden behind a screen. Are you the unbeatable FIFA champion who cannot kick a ball to save your life!
Congratulations! You are dependent on technology to be what you want. You aren’t addicted, you are transformed. So, who are you? A question, that needs to be asked.
3. Who is Batman? Do the gadgets make Batman, or does Batman make gadgets. You are not defined by the company you keep, but what smartphone you have. Do you suddenly come across an inconspicuous eating joint, which have the best kebabs, by accident in a new city? Or, you know all about the lesser known eating joints of the city before you have landed in it. Do you still enjoy your Kebab, or is it just a job efficiently done! When was the last time you visited a library?
4. What makes you beautiful? Recently, I came across an article which discussed the acceptance and growth of cosmetic surgery. Children, 12 years are tweaking their noses, defining the arc in their eyebrows. When I was 12 all the noses I tweaked was of the horrible looking things, doodled at the back of my notebook. It is frightening! So, next time you want to get rid of that extra fat, will you go run every morning, or will you have a liposuction one weekend and get back to work the next week? What makes your eyes beautiful, the colored contact lenses you don’t need because your eyes work perfectly fine.
5. Who wrote your research paper?
Wikipedia+ Ctrl C+ Ctrl V+ MS Word + Spelling and Grammar Check+ Ctrl S
This is how almost all my college assignments are made. YouTube doesn’t let me sleep at nights. I keep changing TV channels at three in the morning, praying that one of the five hundred channels has to show something of interest. I don’t need friends, conversations, sunset, whatever; I need a fine charging point!
6. The finer things in life – When was the last time you bought a real book, made of paper, or an LP? When was the last time you went buying shoes, and tried on so many pairs that salespersons could not hide their hostility! When was the last time you cracked a joke not ripped off from internet! And, the most important, do you, on a beautiful February afternoon lie under your blanket with Air Conditioner on full Blast? I do. I guess, the definition of finer things have just changed.
7. All the solutions, and no problems – You smoke E-cigarettes. You get your lungs cleaned up surgically. Why roll a joint when you have a vaporizer? Technology is like that. It gets to you the pleasure, bereft of all the stinky dirty smoke. But what is a smoker addicted to? The nicotine or that filthy tarry smoke? Ask yourself. When you live life, knowing that you will die, do you want only solutions, or you also want the problems!
8. It is not good, not bad, until it is too much! There is nothing good or bad about tech dependency. It is way of life. Despite, the hysterical cries about the simpler days of yore in every column decrying modern lifestyle, it feels good to have it. It is comfortable and easy! Our generation loves to sit on its ass. We are doing fine until one day we are not. We look for more. All we get is more apps, a new version of the same model of a refrigerator, hundreds of Samsung Galaxies, or if you are more adventurous, maybe they can make a robot you to console your loved ones after you are gone. For the right price, of course!
9. You don’t miss it! Unlike all good things, you don’t miss it if it is gone. I got rid of my phone a few months ago. Yes, that is right, I do not have a phone. It’s possible. I am a wizard.
The first month was horrible. The next three or so have been blissful. Recently, I downloaded WhatsApp on my PC. Thousands of pending messages, none I would die for!
10. So, are you the idiot? It opens at the close. I wrote this article to find out the Einsteinian idiot. I did not realize I was one till I decided to not have a phone. I realized the hollowness of my modes of communication.
It is a choice. You like your phone, Plasma TV, your electric massager. Your vibrating dildo, your cosmetic surgery. You have bought all the I’s in the apple since first to sixth. You know your Bose from Sennheiser! Be it so! But the day you realize, you don’t enjoy it anymore, grab your phone and throw it at the nearest wall with all your strength. Love it, live with it, but don’t let it be your master.
