Oh technology, what have you done to the humans – everybody is hooked

In the late ’90s, the best form of networking was to meet people in person. If someone was sick, people used to bring flowers and visit the patient. The world was real, people sent greetings cards, sent postcards for seasonal greetings. It was the era of great human interaction and people talked. Celebrating a birthday would begin with receiving a nice birthday card followed up by some surprise gifts.

But then someone invented the internet.

People did not accept the internet overnight. It took some time for the net to spread its web around humans. People preferred the real world as real and internet world was still a virtual, fake, non-transparent and could not be trusted.

Decades passed and the humans changed. The fake and the virtual world has taken over the actual world. Today, the later is being tipped as old fashioned.

Today, people live, breath and survive virtually. Humans are hooked up to the machines, smartphones, computers and life has just got a little too fast paced. Two things attributed a long way in shaping the world from actual to virtual. The 1st is social media networking sites and apps and other is the fast emergence of e-commerce.

Gone are the days where you would have to lineup outside your bank to get your cash or send money. Now the ones making up the lines are 60 years old and above, who still believe the real world means getting up early in the morning, dressing up and driving the car to the bank take care of the issues in person.

With the emergence of the internet, the financial aspects are taken care of by a click of a button. You can send and receive money, do the shopping online without leaving your home by simply using smartphones and computers.

With each day passing by, human interaction is literally going away. The birthday wishes are done online, thanks to the technology that reminds you of your connection birthday and still, we forget wishing the person.

It’s the race against the time. Today, not seeing your friend for over a year is common. You can still stay in touch by waving each other using Facebook Messenger or sending a message or a video on WhatsApp.

Today’s kids are different too. Kids are getting distanced from their elders, parents in particular. Their parents are too busy spending time on social media, surfing, interacting with strangers they do not even know and not spending time with their kids. Parents are role models, they show their kids how to follow their footprints. Sadly, kids follow what they see and they repeat the same feat, living virtually.

Gone are the years when kids were busy reading books, playing outdoor games. Today, with the emergence of Snapchat and Instagram, books are taken over by the selfies and videos. Who would have thought that an ugly DOG filter would be the teen’s prefered choice as the coolest thing and online games would replace the actual outdoor games?

Oh, technology, what have you done to the humans — making them the apes with dropped shoulders and fingers on their smartphones.

They are unaware of their surroundings while their neighbour is still struggling for a two times meal.

With the continuous use of social media, one fears, people would hardly know each other in the future and will recognize someone randomly walking in the street as their social media friend.

That I fear would be the worst time ever. Worst than the times of early civilizations.

We are hooked, we are controlled and we are fine with it.

Do we have a choice?