The Vicious Circle

(Sequel to FFL - Friends for Life)

When I opened the door to step out, I was horrified by the number of mails at my doorstep. I literally had to push them aside to proceed. Having the door bell removed did not help with the menace, now I had to deal with the unopened mails. As I approached the lift, random people came to say hi, they wanted to make friends with me. I had to ignore them and move forward. Life was getting difficult, I might be missing out important mails and important people when I was ignoring unsolicited ones.

Now now, if you are wondering what is happening to me, I was just making an attempt to put life into the virtual world of social media platforms that are literally stalking us. In this sequel to FFL ( my earlier blog written almost a decade ago) you will see how much I have moved on and what the fast paced technology has done to me in my attempt to stay sane. I have grown up to the fact that these virtual platforms are no more Friends for life (FFL), they are just acquaintances who need to be constantly reminded of their place in my life.

Everyday I pick up my mobile, unfortunately immediately after I put down my toothbrush, just to check if I have missed out anything for school. I need to catch up on the late messages sent, as I consciously logout of the virtual world a while before I go to bed. This has helped me drag myself away from work, friends, extended family and others, to concentrate on myself and what matters to me at the end of my day. No offence, I realise that I often cross my boundaries and send messages at wee hours hoping for the other person to read and respond at their convenience.

I have noticed the effect of these ex-FFLs on my attention span and memory. I pick my mobile to do something really important, and then Google sends me an important message about that one very important thing all NRIs living in Bousher should know! It's creepy how you get messages related to your conversations with family the previous day. I also get suggestions based on what my husband and kid have been browsing, hmm clever.. but they can't trap me there, I have found alternate ways to keep tab. Now now coming back to memory and attention span, see I missed what I was going to say. The importance of the word important has diluted to such an extent that I sometimes wonder how I am going to ignore all these unsolicited information, messages and news and still stay connected with relevant people and messages. How can I complain about my kids memory if this is the only world she knows that exists.

In this virtual world of distractions, my biggest challenge is navigating through these distractions and educating my kid on how to ignore the irrelevant. I am learning the difficult way that actions speak louder than words and hence stay away from YouTube, Insta and FB hoping that my daughter would be watching me. WhatsApp too would soon have to join the list.

We 90's kids believed atleast until adulthood that our parents knew everything; but sadly our children compare us with Google and Siri, I have given up! I told my daughter that I haven't learnt everything she is learning and don't remember half of what I learnt.

Sometimes I wonder what if a sudden thunder strikes, the internet goes haywire, and peace prevails! But then what about the free overseas calls, online shopping, my remote office, digital banking, my blogpage etc etc. The bitter truth is that we are all stuck in this vicious circle called the virtual world, God save us!