I had disappeared from these pages because my job in field as Assistant Commissioner kept me really busy. I had continued voicing my inner demons in my personal diary which I kept writing whenever the noise inside my head was too loud. These days, though, I am on Eid break and don't have much to do so during my routine walk in the evening, I thought back to this space. I recalled how it was almost a decade ago that I had started writing here. Since then of course the digital landscape has 'metamorphosed' or 'metastasized' (take your pick) into something else. My page was a personal cathartic space which is also why I had never advertised it and most of my entries were personal and not some pontification or analysis on social, political issues.
Today, I have returned to my page after a long time. Now when I think about it, I guess this is so because I wanted a 'digital' escape from the social media frenzy. Smart technology is doing something to us and we don't realise it. Somebody needs to work on this. This is truly a momentous event in the history of mankind. These smartphones in our hands which moonlight as high-power cameras have truly been habit-forming inventions and how they are changing human behaviours is something we need a thorough study on. My hunch is that this smart little device has far reaching implications and I am not just talking about the usual overused buzzwords such as 'Communication Revolution' or 'Information Age'. I am not even talking about the contradiction of 'loneliness & depression' in the increasingly wired world which is a very serious implication in itself. I think I am referring to something even deeper. It is doing something to human behaviour at a profound level. It is changing our concept of time. It is certainly changing our conception of knowledge. It is changing who we are and what we become. I don't want this to come off as apocalyptic because I don't really know for sure what all it implies. But again, my hunch is that all is not well and we need rigorous scientific studies and research papers on this. I am sure they exist to some extent somewhere. I haven't been able to find them as yet. Be that as it may, we need to take notice of what is happening to us and study this phenomenon in a rigorous scientific manner.
