Thursday, 26 July 2012

Timeline and Technology (T&T)

“I don’t have time!” is a phrase we are too familiar with and have used once too many times in our everyday lives and it’s the stark truth. I can imagine what and how you would have used TIME, if it was under your control, and there you go manipulating it to suit your whims, right?. Certainly, you can’t have time, so forget it.  At most, you can only share in it. No one has control over time; neither can anyone stop it so forget about the doom mongers who want to bring the world to an end in 2012.

Notwithstanding different time zones, there have been different times in ages past, characterized by their own related activities and am pleased to remind and welcome you to the technological age, where reality has been relegated to the background for the total embrace of the virtual world; where people would rather keep to themselves than other people and by the help of their ubiquitous mobile phones and the internet.

In times past, you were considered out-of-sync when you owned a bigger mobile phone that could not go into your pocket, but now it’s what’s in vogue and you tend to wonder how the world thinks. Sometimes, I am tempted to think that the whole world is mad because we all tend to think the same. And if you dare think different, you would need all of your strength and mind to defend the opposition that seeks to query your unique line of thinking and ways of doing things and before you know it, you have aligned yourself to the fray and singing the chorus of the masses.

The mobile phones have been of immense help to our age. It has hastened development globally and in every way by helping us disseminate real-time information. It has averted so many unsavoury and unwanted situations among others, but for every choice, there is a price to pay and this price unfortunately is so grave and fatal.

The mobile phone is a distraction. Distraction to what? To the normal way of life. And what is the normal way of life? Normal way of life must be the basic way of living, devoid of attracting so many materialism into our lives, devoid of perpetually chasing things that are without our grasp. The phone distracts us from work and other serious and important matters; it is that thin line between productivity and activity. Some people browse all through work either because supervision is lax or because they just cannot do without it.

You see a lot of people rushing to their various places of work in the morning with depressed faces and blood-shot eyes because they were probably surfing the internet all night long or talking on the phone at reduced rates or other times free tariffs from their service providers. It is unfortunately so because they have friends in different time zones or because they could not do it during the day. They lack the needed intrinsic motivation to work and usually are not enthused about work except for those who have a regular task or quota to contribute and these groups of people are mostly tired during productive hours or sleeping on the job.

People now drive with one hand controlling the gear and the steering wheel while the other hand clutches the phone and the term it dexterity. The phone has to be handy so as to stay in touch with other people around the world. Stay in-touch, doing what? At the expense of your life? People practically cross the roads with their fingers on the tab of the phones, sending a message or checking one.

Relationships have been sacrificed on the altar of technology. Yes we are interconnected and in touch, but mostly with total strangers; people we are hoping are real, people we hope to meet someday. We no longer chat with friends that are around us because there is a stranger chatting you via an application or a gadget. You go to a party and what you see is everybody’s head buried in their palms fidgeting with their phones with loud music blaring in the background and you tend to ask yourself, what happened to those times when you danced all night long and looked forward to leaving the party grounds with a damsel you have spotted among the crowd?

Take a visit to homes and the scene is so pathetic. The whole family is logged on to the internet via their own choice of gadgets. Some are in front of bigger screens thus computers and some hooked on to their mobile phones and none of them is engaged in any meaningful chat; all of them flirting one way or the other with people miles away; some they are not even sure are real.

Parents are happy their children do not go out anymore, where they will be exposed to other perceived and stereotyped lifestyles from their neighbors, not knowing that, their children are up to their necks in danger by indulging in self-destructive thoughts and activities online waiting to go berserk.

There are other groups of people who do not have the TIME to come and chat all day and night, no! They come and dupe people; make money. For these groups of persons, e.g. the Prostitute, the internet is solely for commerce. It has offered them bigger platforms to solicit for clients and tell you what, it’s booming like hot cake and this makes me want to ask, how does hot cake taste like? All they do is put up erotic photos or even in some instances, presentable photos and you are still game.

Some say its modernity so we should get used to it. Get used to the fact that, students don’t read their books anymore? Get used to the fact that porn sites are triggering in your face all day every day until you visit the site and feed your eyes for a while? Get used to the fact that so many people do not write with a pen on a paper or into their books anymore since they can both type on the computer or their sophisticated gadgets and get them printed in a fleeting moment? We have practically forgotten how the world was some years back before the advent of the technological age and that shows how involved our minds are in this destructive stance.

Many people do not use their minds anymore. There is the calculator, thesaurus, phone book and other applications and inventions that are readily available to aid us. How many phone numbers can you dial off the cuff? How do you reach out to someone when you are distressed and in danger somewhere without your phone since all we do is go to phone book on the menu and scroll down to the desired person we wish to call or just by typing the first letter of the receiver’s name and voila, s/he is on the other side, unless there is a situation?

We used to remember so many phone numbers because we kept phone books and kept punching same numbers overly until it gets etched in our minds. At this pace and rate, I think all of us are endangered because, what happens when the server at the service provider’s office is switched off? The thin line between doom and chaos is just a click away. What if the man manning the server sleeps on duty? What happens when that man presses the off button on an experimental spree? We go to gatherings and our mobile phones are rendered useless because of traffic and pressure on the location and that makes it hard to locate each other let alone pass on information.

Can you even imagine MTN, Vodafone, Expresso, Airtel and other service providers go off for a day like ECG does? I think someone has to save the already lost world because the whole world is plunging into an abyss. It is rightly so, because those who are not inclined will also be dragged along and we need a backup plan as soon as possible.

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