Information addiction

Dear Potential Offspring,

I hope you are doing well. This is the third letter that I am writing to you and if you are anything like me, you might have already filtered these messages to Spam. On the other hand, if you are wondering why on earth am I supposed to read this or why is he using me as a medium to vent? Well, firstly, I am a fan of providing unsolicited advice and by the time you read these messages, you are probably used to it. Next, I think directing these thoughts at someone that doesn’t exist is a far worthy endeavor than shouting it to the Internet void.

Every letter that I write to you always has a trigger. For this, you have to imagine a bored, 24 year old man [1], dreading the upcoming week.

I was walking down to the grocery store, bored out of my mind and cursing myself for having forgotten my phone because the store was crowded which families getting their weekend shopping done. That crowd meant that I had to wait at least ten minutes in the queue without anything to distract me.

At that point, I heard a mother say to her kid, “Vedike pathundu iru, naan ulla poitu varen,” [2] or in English, “Just wait here, and look around, I will go buy things and come.” Understandably, the kid rebelled and wanted to either go with her or wanted her to give a phone to him with a new game. This got me thinking about something that I want to talk to you about.

I would say that I belong to the last generation to whom just staring at the outside world was a pass-time. We were the kids who were entertained by the chug of trains, the moo’s and maa’s of cattle, the papoons [3] of auto-rickshaws and the reverse tunes of cars. We have personally been so distracted by our surroundings in a mall that our parents have lost us[4]. Sometimes, we were able to substitute boring classes in schools by simply staring out of the window and without noticing that the lady outside staring back at you was your very real and very angry principal.

You might find this very surprising to hear, but the race to gain the window seat during long trips have caused minor but intense sibling feuds. In trains, it meant that you could view upcoming stations before anyone else and as a kid, that was a very satisfying experience. As we grew up, the holder of the window seat had the upper hand in road trip games like pointing our recurring landmarks before anyone else[5].

For me, “paraaka pakaradhu,” was more than just about the game. It was the first step to unlocking the full potential of my imagination and go to places within an instant. You will probably never understand the joy of waking up in the middle of night during a bus or train journey and just staring at the country side as towns and villages pass by, wondering, what are those people doing? How would it be to live there? If not philosophical pondering, there was something satisfying about waving at people on the streets as you crossed them.

With so many of such things to occupy our time, we never needed additional sources of entertainment. I have personally spent entire summer holidays by spending zero time in front of a screen. Now, I look at LCD screens more than the outside world. I look for window seats on flights so that I can watch my movie without being disturbed by others in my row leaving to empty their bladders[6]. My train travel everyday begins with taking my phone out as I enter the train and only keeping it away when I reach my desk. It has been a really long time since I spent a weekend without staring at a screen.

Of course, the argument for staring at the screen instead of staring outside is that, you simply can. Technology these days, allows you to know so much more about the world that is very often, much more interesting than staring outside the window[7].

But today, as I stood in the long queue at the grocery store, I can’t help but wonder if that constant access to information from all over the world has become an addiction that I miss when I don’t have it[8]. Had I gotten so used to information from all around the world that I couldn’t even spend 5 minutes waiting in the queue without my phone? [9]

I was so disgusted at myself that I swore to observe my surroundings when I walked back home and note down at least ten interesting things on the way in a blog post.

No, I eventually did not note it down. But I do remember seeing an adorable little girl walking with a towel on her head and pretending she is a princess and a couple having an intimate moment near the lift[10]. I went back to my life of working in front of a computer, pursuing hobbies in front of a computer and hearing about the world through a computer.

It is hard to believe that I experienced all of those emotions, despite my regular fix of computer screens every week. The very fact that I did, makes me happy because there is still a part of me that is fighting and holding on to the past when things were simpler.

You might be thinking, if I am going to ask you to denounce electronics and go outside a little more. It is already impossible to do that now because anything you want to do has to be done digitally[11] and on a whole, I still believe this addiction with technology is helping humanity. By the time you grow old with virtual reality and matrix babies, it might be naive to even mention that.

To be frank, I did start this post that day wanting you to spend less time on your VR glasses and more time with the world and claim that I would do the same. But then, I read this article that said that in the 1800s people worried that fiction books were ruining the children[12], just like how I believe smart-phones are ruining today’s children and how you will believe your robot nanny is ruining your child.

Ultimately, all of us want to hold on to some aspects of our past as the world changes around us. Whether you were an old man in the 1800s who derided fiction books or you are a youngish man in 2016 who thinks smartphones are ruining this generation, this fight, I believe is something that makes us human. Eventually, people lose that fight. But hey, doesn’t mean we should stop trying. Right?

PS: Someone read the footnotes on the post. Tried something similar to footnotes from entertaining books. :D Also, I am not entirely satisfied with this post for some reason.