5th June 2022
The more I research technology the more I realize its harmful effects.
It has been some time now, I have been criticizing the disproportionate usage the smartphone gets as one of the primary technology devices we have with us. Holding the phone in my right hand, shaking it, I go on explaining to people how this is the single most element in our present-day life which is causing the most amount of harm to us.
As luck would have it, today I meet someone who was born in the pre-technology age. She was a working professional even before the TV became a common household name. Not that I do not interact with people from the pre-technology age. My father & mother both fall in that bracket of people. Needless to say, both my grandmothers are wat beyond pre-technology.
But today, it was a meeting with someone who was not directly related to me. What I was hearing did not have prejudice nor did I have any preconceived notion about the person’s beliefs.
She happens to be Mrs. Olga Ghosh. Ex principal of Sri Jain Vidyalaya. Her repertoire of professional accolades is something I’ll come to later.
I’d like to start with a sentence that Mrs. Olga stated that grabbed my attention like a razor-sharp-focused light beam. While we were discussing how these smartphones are causing detrimental effects on our mental health, she mentioned her smartphone usage pattern which fascinated me.
Calling was its primary function. Very minimal scrolling. Messaging when required. But primarily calling. Her husband Mr. Ghosh doesn’t even do that. He only uses the phone for calling purposes.
We moved on to other discussions & I came home to start working. While on a break, I was scrolling through YouTube when I came across this video by Ashton Womack where she mentions how she has been using a “dumb phone” for the past 6 months. She was sharing her experiences.
I watched the video and remembered the conversation I had with ma’am earlier in the evening.
Since Ma’am was primarily using the phone for calling purposes, essentially she was using it as a dumb phone, rather than a smartphone. I have already experimented with life without social media (Facebook & Instagram) and I came to realize life is normal without social media. There is no problem at all. I do not miss it at all.
I have seen Sohail(a dear friend) switch to a dumb phone when I met him a month back. Sohail is the Editor-in-Chief for The Beacon Kolkata. He has always been an early adopter. Started an online web magazine back in 2015 that also for a very niche audience was way ahead of its time.
So when I came across this video of a girl sharing her experience of using a dumb phone for 6 months, I started thinking.
What if I try & perform yet another experiment of using just an ordinary phone, which lets me use a phone as it is supposed to be used. Primarily calls augmented with the features of a pager, essentially allowing you to send text messages too. That’s it. Nothing more nothing less. No internet, no connected world. For that, I have my laptop.
For the past few months or I would say for the past year or so, I have been deeply contemplating the concept of technology driving us, or are we driving technology?
One is where we are using technology to the best of its capabilities thus humans driving technology.
The other perspective imagines a state where technology is driving humans. As technology wants, thus humans do. Dystopian if you ask me.
Sadly the second scenario holds more truth than the first one.
From children to adults to elderly people. Everyone is glued to the phone. It’s like some people came together, developed a piece of hardware technology, put in the ability to stay connected & is basically controlling people of all ages to be glued to the screens. Sometimes for hours on end.
I’ll try and explain my claim with the help of 3 examples, which I believe can make you see a clearer picture.
1. 22 year old MBA graduate spending weekend watching Netflix & Reels – I got a chance to interact with a 22-year-old young man from Ghaziabad who happily spent his weekend glued to the smartphone. No going out. Meeting friends. Just lazing on the couch/bed & glued to the phone. I’m not judging, I’m merely observing over here. It is completely the boy’s wish to do what he wants to do during his weekends. My mere point is that an MBA student, possibly going through the last study period of his life is watching Netflix & reels throughout the weekend. Strange. Before the smartphome came in our lives, would a MBA graduate spend his/her weekend in the house? I doubt.
2. Mother making small child watch Reels to get him distracted, in order to make the child eat – A few days back I had visited my village for a religious festival. In more ways than one, my village is still untouched by modern developed amenities. In a way it is good. The only problem. The penetration of the internet & ‘smart’phones. I see a mother making her 2-year-old daughter watch reels so that it can get the child distracted & she can do other work. Over here too I’m not judging, but just observing. The amount of short-form, mindless & forced chemical secreting content the kid is consuming from infancy is surely going to have detrimental effects on the development of the child. It is just impossible for the lady from a village to know the harmful effects prolonged screen time will have on her baby. If she knew & understood the consequences I am sure, she would most definitely not have given the phone to the small girls’ hands.
3. My dad watches endless WhatsApp forward videos. Does the video make him any more knowledgeable about any subject? No, not at all. Mostly they are some news forward from Whatsapp university. A university where professors instead of having a Ph.D. are equipped with mobile phones where they are making stimulating newsworthy content. Half-hearted knowledge yet full-on masala is included in the video which makes people want to see & forward it. Whatsapp even included a small feature that shows which videos got forwarded multiple times. My father is one of the most active persons I have seen. He isn’t a lazy man by any stretch of the imagination. Yet when he is idle & bored, his hand automatically goes to the mobile phone & the mobile phone takes over.
Today, while I was talking to Mrs. Olga I was talking about everything technology-related. A system for schools. While we were discussing, our core idea was revolving around how technology should be driven by humans. How technology should be used to make life a little easier for parents.
While I would be going ahead & start developing the system, I would very well keep 1 thing in mind. This new system I will develop should be desktop first, mobile second.
I don’t know how the audience will accept it. Maybe it would be required to take a mobile-first approach. Yet, I have my points as to why we should go Desktop first.
This system would be called AMAR (Acute Metrics & Advanced Research). Do notice my use of the word system instead of the word platform.
This single word may have a lot of impact on how AMAR as a system turns out to be.
Why if you may ask?
Operating System – is software, not a platform.
Microsoft Ofice – is a system of word processing and software.
AMAR shall be developed in that model. “Operating System” for schools.
Mr. Olga wished us good luck with the project.
She is a fascinating person to interact with. I would love to tell everyone her story, but for that, I believe I would need her permission. From what was understood, ma’am liked the team of AMAR. She should give me her best regards if I want to narrate her story.
Let’s see.
Digital Minimalism has to be a chalked-out strategy that we as humans undergo to understand 1 simple thing.
Is the machine controlling man? Or is man controlling the machine?
Debdutto Banerjee
