Whom are we connected to – to technology or people?

There was a colony of birds who were very worried about hunters coming and trapping them. An elderly bird suggested do not fall for the trap when the hunter lures you in with food, and all shall be well. The birds agreed and learnt it by heart: “The hunter shall come, will lure us with food, but we shall not fall for it”. Happily, they started singing the solution to their problem. When the hunter came and heard the birds singing, he was disappointed. However, since he had made the effort to come, he thought of taking a chance and laying the trap. To his amazement, the birds kept singing “The hunter shall come, will lure us with food, but we shall not fall for it” and fell in the trap  ~ Unknown

A key focus of technological growth over the years has been to promote, support and assist communication flow across geographically distributed audiences. On the one hand this flow of communication has solved a genuine problem of bringing people together, but on the other hand has also led to social isolation and bullying (the notorious ‘Blue Whale’ challenge is an extreme example).

While platforms engage users based on their behaviour, users also want to be engaged by such platforms, for the addiction of constantly moving images (static or videos) are too difficult to be rejected. They provide a comfort, of not having to actually be in different situations, while still being able to see them.

There is plethora of literature on our information disclosure proclivities, when interacting with a screen – we tend to reveal way more than what we would, while in a real-life situation. This occurs since we treat the screen as an inanimate object and are able to dump our wildest of eccentricities on it, making it a marketer’s delight. Most people end up consuming a lot of media about the ills of such force fed technological consumption. However, it only promotes further consumption leading to an addiction of sorts – remember the birds!

The world was a better place when books were a man’s best friend and discussions needed people to sit face to face. Not only did this help people connect on a personal (and emotional) level, but also helped resolved many disputes by nipping them in the bud. However, the downward spiraling mental model of believing that technology is the end, rather than the means to an end, has led to a loss of interpersonal skills. These further manifest as lack of empathy and ultimately as indifference. While lack of feelings and indifference made James Bond an impeccable spy, it also made him very lonely at heart – most of us are not spy material and live in a world where humans are called social animals.

Globalization, by way of making the world a more connected place, has brought about many opportunities and threats. While getting connected may no more be an option but a necessity, we still have a choice: The decision of whether we want to use technology to connect, network and interact meaningfully or to bury our eyes in the never-ending deluge of social banter, is entirely ours.