Saturday, January 13, 2007

Have we lost our privacy?

If you happen to live in a metro or even a big town, just take a walk outside on the roads. What do you see? For sure, you would see at least seven out of ten people speaking on their mobile phones! This is the scenario today- even auto rickshaw drivers or labourers have one in their pocket. Such is the impact of mobile communication. India is known to be among the nations having the cheapest mobile tariffs in the world. This may be one of the reasons. What bothers me is the fact that we have lost our lives to our phones! We need to speak to someone every now and then. And if we don’t need to do that, someone needs to speak to us every now and then!

Unknowingly, we have lost every last bit of privacy that we had. We may stay in the most secluded of places but like the Hutch advertisement very sweetly puts across “Wherever you go, our network follows you”. Well that’s what’s happening to each and every one of us. Off course the world is getting closer and the concept of a global village has arrived, but think of the cons of such a situation. Where are the philosophers and thinkers? You may argue saying that “We do have the freedom to switch our phones off”. But when would we do something like that. Even if we were to do something like that it would probably be because we’ve fought with someone and we don’t want to talk to them! And even then the urge to switch on the mobile would conquer or emotions more often sooner than later.

People call us all the time and say “Hello, How have you been? I’ve missed you so much.” Well to think of it, do we actually give people a chance to miss us? How did our parents or rather grand parents live? There weren’t any mobile phones then. Off course we could always make a call from a landline when we needed to. I don’t think any of our mobiles stay quiet without receiving a call or atleast a message every hour. And if someone’s phone stops working for a day or two, all hell breaks loose. People call to ask whether everything is alright and so many such things.

I’ve actually wondered at many an instance as to whether I would be able to stay without a phone for a considerable period of time. I’ve tried it once and failed miserably. There’s this urge to reach out for my phone and message someone. I then realized that we do message people without any real considerable message to pass on!

“Hey man. Wat U Up2?”

Or

“Wat’s up?”

Or even

“Good Morning”

What the hell are we getting to? Are we becoming slave to technology? That is one other cause for concern. I guess if we didn’t have our phones, we’d fine some other way of keeping ourselves busy and there’s a 70% chance that it would be something more productive. So now we no longer have any such thing as a “Private Life” and we’re becoming slave to technology. Is this for the good?????

Oops… Am getting a call… Gotta go…. Give it some thought people……


P.S: My Spanish post is still underway... just wasn't in the mood to complete it and thought i'd put something else in here!