Prisoners of Technology

From oldest to newest.
by: Shirsha Basu

That Nokia flip phone was my first phone. I shared it with my sister… Mondays Wednesdays Fridays, hers; Tuesdays Thursdays, mine. I remember how proud of it I was; it was my ticket to fitting into society. Little did I know, it was also the beginning of a technological obsession.
I’m not sure if this is a part of growing up, or if time itself is changing.
Our smartphones are getting smarter with each new advancement, but our own intelligence seems to be inversely related. We rely on these devices to connect us with others, to share our thoughts, to speak up; yet, we often find ourselves staring into a little bright screen simply waiting for likes, follows, numbers to go up. We feel more comfortable texting someone rather than actually spending time with our friends and having a face-to-face conversation. We type "LOL!" without even smiling. We think our phones give us freedom to connect to the world, but really, we are prisoners of these mobile devices of illusion. We think a simple friend request or a follow is equivalent to meeting a new person or developing a new friendship. We think that asking for someone’s number is the beginning of a relationship. We think that what we see in that little screen in our palms is our society, instead of the world around us. We think that comments, retweets, favorites make us superior to others. We’re prisoners. We’re prisoners of the like button that determines our value. We’re prisoners of that charger that binds us to the closest plug point, like a dog in a leash or a lion in a cage. We’re prisoners of “what’s your wifi password?”, instead of “how have you been?”. We’re prisoners of the time that we spend on our phones each day without noticing the world changing around us.