 "‘Bagdogra to Kolkata… Such good company but still no one to talk to. Thank you Alexander Graham Bell,’ tweeted Asha Bhosle")
It often makes me nauseous, yet I am unable to tear myself away from it, that animal called Twitter. Though I am not much of a tweeter, I like to keep an eye on the goings-on in the world and stay abreast of the ugly, the bad and the smattering of good — the unfortunate order in which Twitter serves up information.
On most days, it makes my stomach churn, my blood boil and my skin crawl. But there are moments when it gets me thinking about a time we might have lost forever. A time stolen by one of the most dangerous inventions of our times — the smartphone. One such moment came in the form of a tweet by Asha Bhosle: a picture of the singer seated in what appeared to be a waiting room, face resting on hands, looking bored and forlorn. On the adjoining sofas sat her fellow travellers, each glued to his phone, blind to the legend sitting there. “Bagdogra to Kolkata… Such good company but still no one to talk to. Thank you Alexander Graham Bell,” the caption read.
It’s a familiar picture. Sometimes, looking at my fellow commuters gives me this odd impression of ostriches with their heads buried in sand. At times I, too, stare into my phone for so long that I get disoriented. And when I look up, the real world looks unreal — too bright, too big. It feels as though I have been hoisted out of a bottomless well and transported to another world.
How far we have come from those days when we engaged with, or were even conscious of, the world around us — the real world, the tangible world. Those days when we chatted with fellow travellers. Or simply observed them, assigning lives and stories to their characters. When we hailed strangers to ask for directions. When these strangers went out of their way to help us. When the five-inch screen we now keep turning to did not hold the power to snap our attention away from dinner, and family, and friends.
How did we get here? How did utility morph into addiction? Is this what Graham Bell intended? Did he anticipate this? Who knows?
On most days, it makes my stomach churn, my blood boil and my skin crawl. But there are moments when it gets me thinking about a time we might have lost forever. A time stolen by one of the most dangerous inventions of our times — the smartphone. One such moment came in the form of a tweet by Asha Bhosle: a picture of the singer seated in what appeared to be a waiting room, face resting on hands, looking bored and forlorn. On the adjoining sofas sat her fellow travellers, each glued to his phone, blind to the legend sitting there. “Bagdogra to Kolkata… Such good company but still no one to talk to. Thank you Alexander Graham Bell,” the caption read.
It’s a familiar picture. Sometimes, looking at my fellow commuters gives me this odd impression of ostriches with their heads buried in sand. At times I, too, stare into my phone for so long that I get disoriented. And when I look up, the real world looks unreal — too bright, too big. It feels as though I have been hoisted out of a bottomless well and transported to another world.
How far we have come from those days when we engaged with, or were even conscious of, the world around us — the real world, the tangible world. Those days when we chatted with fellow travellers. Or simply observed them, assigning lives and stories to their characters. When we hailed strangers to ask for directions. When these strangers went out of their way to help us. When the five-inch screen we now keep turning to did not hold the power to snap our attention away from dinner, and family, and friends.
How did we get here? How did utility morph into addiction? Is this what Graham Bell intended? Did he anticipate this? Who knows?
‘Bagdogra to Kolkata… Such good company but still no one to talk to. Thank you Alexander Graham Bell,’ tweeted Asha Bhosle
