Weapons of Destruction or Tools of Development?

Few months back I had visited one of my friends from my native village after a gap of 5 years along with my son. It was a festival day and I had fixed an appointment with my friend before few days of the proposed visit. We reached his home at the fixed time and he and his family members warmly welcomed us. His old parents and wife fondly enquired about my family, job etc and were very happy with our visit. His wife offered us delicious sweets and went to the kitchen to make tea. My friend and I started sharing about developments of our lives and there started the continuous interruption of mobile calls from his friends and colleagues. All were conveying festival greetings and somehow I got nearly 10 minutes to talk to him out of my one hour presence in his home. While returning, with a disappointed face I said to my son, “Now I realize the other side of conveying festival greetings over mobile” .To this my son said, “You are not much different from your friend; It’s good you have realized it now.”            

Mobiles phone have revolutionized the life style in the 21^st century and plays a crucial role in bringing developments in the life of people in many ways. But at the same time, the recent trend in using smart phones by the common man and the so called educated persons is a matter of grave concern for the society. Gradually, most of the members of the society are becoming too much self- centered and characters of togetherness and humankind is disappearing from many people. With the excessive use of the device of communication, the communication within the family members at home has been decreasing drastically. Even family lunch and dinner hours witness members engaged to mobile phones at one hand and food at the other hand. The concepts of family tours and vacation trips have also changed. Instead of having interaction and good time with the group members; everyone gets engaged with their smart phones. Whenever persons visit a new place, the first thing they do is clicking of their ‘selfies’ and uploading them immediately in the social media. Enjoying the beauty of the places and learning about the people, cultures etc of the place are completely forgotten concepts now.

The inappropriate use of smart phones also affects the work culture in offices. Many employees are getting addicted to the use of online games and social networks such as WhatsApp, Facebook etc during office hours and their attention gets distracted away from the works. Even many officers keep snooping on their smart phones during public interviews & official discussions. Situations in schools where values are inculcated on children are no different. Students found using mobile phones inside the school campus are punished but many teachers continue to use their mobiles even inside the class rooms without any guilty.

The adverse effects of the excess and unsystematic use of smart phones and the social media would bring great harm to the society as it would gradually change the attitude of people towards life and the fellow human beings. We may not realize the impacts of it immediately but within a decade we may be living in a virtual world which is far away from reality. I am not saying that one should completely keep away from the use of smart phones and the social media. All we need to do is use them with proper schedule without affecting our commitments to family, employers and the society.