Writing on the wall

Despite being a millennial, I am often haunted by the gnawing fear that very soon I will be standing on the other side of technology. I see my parents standing there, still trying to figure out why our faces light up, literally, post-midnight, when the light goes off.

It is the time they switch off their phones, anticipating a good night’s dream. With the same anticipation, we switch ours on.

My parents know how to message on WhatsApp. They are even smart enough to make a video call and do not confuse it with Skype. But they can easily do away with all these, like I can do away with Snapchat.

There lies the nightmare. I don’t want to be MIA (Missing in action) in the world overtaken by newer apps, tailored to meet the fancies of newer people of the world.

I was born, though not long ago, in a world where human beings lived and things trended. Not the other way round. The toughest test of friendship was the night before exam. Not submitting their names at the alter of memes.

The shift, in my case, has been smooth. And I realized it the morning Facebook congratulated me for being affable enough to have 700 friends. This translates to a formidable amount of patience to go through the minute details of the lives of at least 300 of them. And that too, in every half an hour as I always fear of missing out. Facebook, I need to be congratulated, but for being patient. In reality, I don’t even have seven friends, or do I?

But I won’t have them for long. Another app comes and the friendship is again tested. I have found out that I have more friends on Facebook than Instagram. (Not even considering the number of followers on Twitter, as I believe Twitter is more of an unfriending platform). And the reason is simple. Many are left behind/redundant in this ongoing race of technological evolution.

There was one article on why people above the age of 25 will not enjoy Snapchat. I sympathized with the author a minute after I downloaded it, followed by a spontaneous deletion. That app was a constant reminder of how the evolution will just discard me. Say, in another five years.

But not everybody of the older generation is lagging behind. I have an aunt who posts ‘How are you?’ at every photo I upload on Facebook, single-handedly pissing of at least 50 out of my 700 friends who had commented on the post earlier. No, she doesn’t stop there. She then calls me up

“Hello beta, Haven’t you checked my comment on your post? You haven’t replied yet…”

“Yes, mashi (aunty). I am good. I have checked.”

“Then why don’t you reply me there. You are always online and commenting on every other thing on Facebook. But can’t reply to this old woman.”

Ok then… I can see the ‘writing on the wall’