The screen in our pockets

I have been living the Indian college life first in an NIT and now in IIT. Coming from a lower middle class family, I remember the angry stare of my mom, as I would often disappear into my phone. I have been using Facebook for like 7 years now.

Time passed. Things changed. The last time I went home, I remember myself sitting awkwardly in the living room of my aunt’s home as she, her husband, and my parents all lost in the screens from their pockets.

The cyberculture shares a strange relationship with temporality in the sense, the age and the exposure of an individual to the different forms of mass media.

Connectivity and it’s Discontents, by Sherry Turkle acts as a provocation to be aware of the nuances involved in designing our future.

Design is problem solving. Or is it? We have moved a long way from Form follows Function. But we still fall back to the same principles. What about responsibility? It’s easy to make something without having a clue as to it’s future use. And as a result there is always an equally likely chance of things going North and South, and the impact affects the us all.

Human evolution occurred linearly but the revolutions we as a species lived through have been exponential. Natural evolutionary processes have been left behind in the race against development. What’s the consequences? Who is responsible for the kind of future we might be living in?

It’s difficult to get a grasp of what’s going on for the new netizens. For the more experienced community there are people who ignore the inner workings for an easier life and people aware of the stuff under the hood. This gap is often exploited in the name of a better experience but what about the virtual walls we end up creating. What is it that people truly want is never asked but generally imposed on all of us. And isn’t that supposed to be a biased decision for a platform meant for everyone?

What is right? What is freedom? Who decides? Us or them? We still refer to them as if it’s all the same just like as in our childhoods. But let’s go back a few years and think before we accept to whatever we come across. And what as we individuals can do in order to make a difference?? Maybe open our eyes and see things for what they are for a change…