Wake up, the mobile is making you immobile

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Sounds stupid and redundant to ask, but why is everyone always staring at their cellphones? Doesn’t the real world exist? What’s so fascinating with that little plastic screen? – Vidya, a mom of two teenage kids.

Certain dumb behaviour trends have overtaken half of this planet. The most disturbing among them is to hide oneself behind a cellphone. I am not referring to talk, text or titillation. True, it’s not as if people have anything really earth-shattering to say, SMS or surf for.
It’s the same old friends we call, the same dumb things we text, the same sites we surf. It’s not as if we have become any wiser, smarter or cooler after acquiring that bright piece of glass in chrome. I would even ignore all this, put it down to our fascination at having the world in our pocket, but there is some real damage happening here.
Earlier, in those good old pre-cyber days, whenever we were in a public place and had time to spare, we would watch the sky or the birds or trees, look at the faces around, soak in the atmosphere. We would interact with the environment. We would let the environment interact with us.
Now, the only thing we do in a public place is to pull out that cellphone and tap away at that silly glass. Apart from crossing the road or interacting in a kiosk, there is hardly a time when we walk erect. It’s that classic head down, eyes locked pose that three billion people are frozen in at any given moment. I have seen it in every continent, every city, every train, every airport, everywhere. If I were a painter I would create a classic canvas and call it Dumb and Digital.
Earlier on, whenever we were in a party or in a gathering where we didn’t have enough friends, we would look at people’s faces hoping to find someone we could talk to. We weren’t particularly ashamed of letting people know we were a bit lost.
Of course, all that has changed. Now we don’t do anything of that kind. We pull out that alternate head, that little four-inch whining, whispering, vibrator from our pockets and start doodling desperately with it as if the world would end in seven minutes unless we came to its rescue.
Now, it’s one thing to use a cellphone as a means of reaching out to the world, but it’s another thing to use it as a means of escaping from the world. By burying our heads inside a cellphone instead of facing our social fears, we are doing serious damage to ourselves. We are losing our ability to face our apprehensions and win over them.
Stop hiding inside your cellphone whenever you are clueless and look straight ahead. Don’t be afraid to reveal all you were trying to conceal. That’s the only way to live — head high and fearless. The world is much more than your endless mental chatter. Too much of cyber space will turn your head into a cipher space.
Wake up, stretch out and look around. The mobile is making you immobile. The cell is locking you inside a cell. Come on dudes. Enough.