They are everywhere you go - on the metro, on the streets, at work, at home, at the table next to you in a restaurant, in the saloon. They are everywhere - people who are busy on their phones.
Constantly swiping and scrolling through feeds, pictures, texts, no matter where they are, on in a while they stretch their necks to ease the pain that has been a part of them for quite while but not leaving them anytime soon - how would it? The source of that pain is also something that never leaves their hands.
You go home, pass by a mirror, and you realise - you are that person too.
Social media, the digital age, the e-world - enticing and addictive not just as words but quite obviously as what they are as well; isn't that why we are all so busy living in that world rather than our own?
Isn't that why we are all constantly glued to these small screens in our hands, once known as phones?
In recent times I have heard so many people complain about backaches and neck pains. I am myself a victim of a constant pain in the back of neck, strained eyes, and a heavy head. The funny thing is I know the source of all this and yet it is a toughie to not cut the habit. I mean, how would I survive if I stay without my phone, not connected to all my virtual friends, and updating myself on what all my followers are saying about my pictures and what the people I follow are up to?
Apart from the mental damage that constantly being on social media entails, I find this constant urge to be on the phone acutely frustrating. What is with the constant scrolling, the constant, chatting, and all of it - it is so much screen time and not enough living the life around. It's not just the neck, my head feels constantly burdened with the influx of information that isn't even necessary and only adds to what we all now call #FOMO - the fear of missing out.
But the sad fact of the matter is that no matter how much we hate it there are very few of us who can live without this smartphone of ours, one that has made us an addict. Hate it, curse it, but we simply can't live without it - apparently.
But there are a few, who have taken up the self preserving fight against their phones by switching back to the age old cellular devices; some designate specific times to be with their phones and aren't constantly on their devices; and some have just given up on the addictive social media sites.
It may be a long fight but until the time when our phones aren't something we unconsciously reach out to in the moment of emptiness, until when our phones aren't the last things we see at night, and until people don't spend dinner table times with friends and family on their phones - I think we have some way to go.
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