Disproportionate Dependency
No, I dint overhear that from a routine telecon. I coined it myself.
And this write-up has got nothing to do with any office matter. Nothing official about it.
(I think this was the punch line coined by Pepsi during 99 Cricket World Cup , when Coca Cola bagged the official sponsorship of the tourney. Smart indeed ! )
Back to the topic.
The other day, I was pondering on the dependency that we human beings have on gadgets. And in the list, undoubted winner of sorts is , the mobile phone. Close enough is the ubiquitous mp3 player. But then, thanks to technology, these things are built into one handy black tiny box which goes by the name mobile phone. Did you say camera ? For the amateurs who are not very particular about the image quality of the capture, but are more keen on the "moments", the camera in the mobile phone is the best mate.
Mobile phones are everywhere.. And most of the time in your pockets. And when you go to the terrace to dry your laundry, it follows.. It comes with you when you decided on a last minute shopping to get some onion, that should go into the boiling oil. And when you go to sleep, there it is, at the very easy convenient one-hand distance. (The one-hand distance is for safety aspects - not of the mobile, but of the user.. Heard of radiations ? )
When was the last time, you wished happy birthday to your friend, w/o an orkut or a mobile reminding you ?
When was the last time, you got up at 5 to go to pick a relative at rly station, all by yourself, and not courtesy the beep beeps of your mobile ?
Do we need a gadget to remind us all these things ? Is this a brain drain happening of a different kind ? Dont we already have all these capabilities built into ourselves ?
The answer is a bright big YES.
So here I am.. I no longer have any reminders in my phone (Okay, I dont call it a gadget. Soo may sue me). And I dont remember setting an alarm in it for getting up in the morning, in the recent past. And guess what.. I havent missed a single bill payment (yet). Good going..
No thinking, and all gadgeting makes Jack a brain-less boy !
Tail:
1. The games that come free with Operating Systems are good ones, dont you think so ? Unlike the car/bike games, this one needs thinking ! I play minesweeper and freecell at work :P
2. Added sudoku to the list recently. It aint such a bad game, after all...
3. Off-topic. The new idea star singer is good! The one that finished recently s***ked BIG TIME!
Labels: me
posted by Rat at 11:42 AM
6 Comments:
Not bad, but now try with everything automated, for say 3 months.. :)
Aaah... I wasn't surprised to see that am only the 2nd one to post when the post si on gadgets!... :-p
I am ok with whatever u hv said. except for the waking up in the morn part.. if ur body clock is not tuned to waking up at 5 in the morn everyday, chances are that your relative will hv to courier u a mobile fone 1 week ahead of they landing in the rlwy station.
Btw, alarm clock wud suffice I guess.. !
Btw, lemme see how u calculate 2+3 without a calculator ;)
Keep me out of this...
1. I don't carry my mobile phone everywhere... I forget to take it most of the time as it isn't of much use to me with regard to its basic function.
2. Alarms, yes its the basic function of my mobile as of now. It wakes me up in the morning, in case I over-sleep.
3. Reminders: I use outlook and not my mobile for that... :D (Don't tell me about bill payment, you get a reminder call from airtel or vodafone for making payments and same is the case with you credit card bills).
But, remember that if you didn't have a basic mobile you need to have a telephone directory, a alarm, a calculator and a watch and as your mobile moves up the sophistication ladder it replaces your camera, mp3 player, diary, laptops, etc. Basically, its not disproportionate dependency on mobile, its rather disproportionate in-dependency from all these different accessories which we would have had to carry.
@Sand - everything automated ? what would that be like ? :-S
@Soo - Know wat. I'm a heavy sleeper, and get up only past 8.30 @Pluto. At Rock, I get up by 6.30. No alarm. Nobody wakes me up.
@Gas - That is a very good last line, you had written. But the point I wanted to touch upon was that ppl are now passing on their "memory" to gadgets, instead of memorizing into their own inbuilt memory!
We are in world where we develop/improve on our core competencies and outsource the rest...
We earn a living because of outsourcing. Does that get into an infinite vicious loop ? :P
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