A COLLEAGUE of mine asked the question, when last were you silent? I confessed to her that I have a daily retreat, on my own, every day, for two hours in the afternoon.
It is the most tranquil time of my afternoon when not even a cellphone can pull me out of my well-earned solitude.
I was quite fascinated when I eavesdropped on a conversation between people who were singing the virtues of cellphones and how they are able to connect with anyone at anytime and access information "24-7".
Why anyone would want to be connected all the time really baffles me.
This dialogue ended with the predictable pronouncements, "I cannot live without my Blackberry" and "I cannot remember what life was like before the advent of the cellphone".
This is what life was like before cellphones: At a restaurant, people who were sharing a meal, actually looked into each other's eyes and had conversations.
Today, you can go to any restaurant in the world and you are bound to find one person or all of them, fidgeting on their cellphones and doing all manner of things that can wait until a convenient moment.
Our meal times are no longer opportunities to relax, focus on each other and just connect. The cellphone has to be answered and answered now!
This situation is even worse at an important meeting where big decisions have to be made. Look around the room and you will find that at some point, those attending are either casting panicky glances at their phones or texting.
As a student, I often feel so sorry for the lecturer who is standing in front of us in a lecture hall, trying to teach us something.
The lesson is lost to some, because they have to fiddle with their cellphones.
To be sure that I do not jump to wrong conclusions, I actually ask people when I am attending a conference or workshop whether they are expecting an urgent message or not and often, the answer is NO, they are just sending messages or greeting someone or even worse, just looking to see if any message or calls have come through.
Why, I ask. "It is just a habit", is the answer. Well, it is a bad habit.
Even when the cellphone rings during a meeting or a conversation, there are some people who don't bother to say, "excuse me I have to take this call".
They just happily answer and presume you will just be sitting or standing at the same place waiting for their return.
Before cellphones, drivers focused on the road, instead of trying to play McGyver, who could jump over a building while diffusing a bomb and saving the world, all at the same time! The Transport Research Laboratory found that motorists who text messages while on the road dramatically increase the likelihood of collision.
Their reaction times deteriorated by 35percent, much worse than those who drank alcohol at the legal limit, who were 12percent slower, or those who had taken cannabis, who were 21percent slower.
Clearly that SMS is worth the lives of other road users! I am sure you have also seen pedestrians, with heads bowed and their thumbs flying all over their cellphone keyboards.
Even at a park you will find such people.
Before cellphones, we could actually give our brains a much-needed test by memorising numbers and spelling words properly without the assistance of predictive text.
I concede that technology has made our lives easier and convenient in many respects.
But our unhealthy reliance on and obsession with them is lamentable. The situation is so ridiculous that a study by New Jersey's Rutgers University has found that these devices can be so addictive that users may have to be weaned off them with treatment similar to that administered to drug users.
There are even tips on how to identify and manage the addiction.
It seems we are no longer in the moment, and immersing ourselves in where we are and what we are doing.
Modern life is teaching us that without our cellphones, we are incomplete.
Shame.
How cellphones have taken over our lives
A COLLEAGUE of mine asked the question, when last were you silent? I confessed to her that I have a daily retreat, on my own, every day, for two hours in the afternoon.
It is the most tranquil time of my afternoon when not even a cellphone can pull me out of my well-earned solitude.
I was quite fascinated when I eavesdropped on a conversation between people who were singing the virtues of cellphones and how they are able to connect with anyone at anytime and access information "24-7".
Why anyone would want to be connected all the time really baffles me.
This dialogue ended with the predictable pronouncements, "I cannot live without my Blackberry" and "I cannot remember what life was like before the advent of the cellphone".
This is what life was like before cellphones: At a restaurant, people who were sharing a meal, actually looked into each other's eyes and had conversations.
Today, you can go to any restaurant in the world and you are bound to find one person or all of them, fidgeting on their cellphones and doing all manner of things that can wait until a convenient moment.
Our meal times are no longer opportunities to relax, focus on each other and just connect. The cellphone has to be answered and answered now!
This situation is even worse at an important meeting where big decisions have to be made. Look around the room and you will find that at some point, those attending are either casting panicky glances at their phones or texting.
As a student, I often feel so sorry for the lecturer who is standing in front of us in a lecture hall, trying to teach us something.
The lesson is lost to some, because they have to fiddle with their cellphones.
To be sure that I do not jump to wrong conclusions, I actually ask people when I am attending a conference or workshop whether they are expecting an urgent message or not and often, the answer is NO, they are just sending messages or greeting someone or even worse, just looking to see if any message or calls have come through.
Why, I ask. "It is just a habit", is the answer. Well, it is a bad habit.
Even when the cellphone rings during a meeting or a conversation, there are some people who don't bother to say, "excuse me I have to take this call".
They just happily answer and presume you will just be sitting or standing at the same place waiting for their return.
Before cellphones, drivers focused on the road, instead of trying to play McGyver, who could jump over a building while diffusing a bomb and saving the world, all at the same time! The Transport Research Laboratory found that motorists who text messages while on the road dramatically increase the likelihood of collision.
Their reaction times deteriorated by 35percent, much worse than those who drank alcohol at the legal limit, who were 12percent slower, or those who had taken cannabis, who were 21percent slower.
Clearly that SMS is worth the lives of other road users! I am sure you have also seen pedestrians, with heads bowed and their thumbs flying all over their cellphone keyboards.
Even at a park you will find such people.
Before cellphones, we could actually give our brains a much-needed test by memorising numbers and spelling words properly without the assistance of predictive text.
I concede that technology has made our lives easier and convenient in many respects.
But our unhealthy reliance on and obsession with them is lamentable. The situation is so ridiculous that a study by New Jersey's Rutgers University has found that these devices can be so addictive that users may have to be weaned off them with treatment similar to that administered to drug users.
There are even tips on how to identify and manage the addiction.
It seems we are no longer in the moment, and immersing ourselves in where we are and what we are doing.
Modern life is teaching us that without our cellphones, we are incomplete.
Shame.
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