By Abhisek Nayak:
The race for better technology hasn’t slowed down, nor will it end in future. Earlier, when there were no vehicles, people had to go to their desired destination by walking or riding animals like horses. Then better technology came, i.e., the invention of motorised vehicles which helped people in travelling faster and making their life easy.
In earlier days, people had to talk directly with the people without any devices. But then, the invention of the telephone allowed a person to talk to another person separated by a long distance. Then mobile phones came which people can take anywhere with them and talk to the people they want. They can even send text messages through mobile phones.
Media such as newspapers, radio, television, allow people to know what’s going on all over the world. People were able to get entertainment through such media among other things. Then came the internet and it made the world a very small place, i.e., it made communication very, very, and very easy.
Many new technologies have come up, but you might have noticed that when we got things easily we lost the eagerness of getting those things. The excitement for getting those things was lessened, the value which things had before has now diminished because of technology. I agree that technology has made our life easier but it has reduced the fun of the hunger of getting things, due to which the respect for what we have has lessened. People know that if something happens to the things they have, then they can easily replace them.
As a ’90s kid, I still remember the days when I was mad about ‘Shaktimaan’ as it used to be telecast once a week and I used to get sad when it wasn’t on its scheduled time because of any Parliament meeting or cricket matches. As a kid, I have spent entire evenings watching cartoon shows like ‘Aladdin’, ‘Duck Tales’, ‘TaleSpin’, ‘Spider-man’, ‘Iron-Man’, etc. In those days, I had a television set very different from the ones we have today. If those TV sets are compared with today’s sets, then the today’s televisions would seem to have a ‘slim and trim’ body and the former would seem like someone has stretched its screen from behind. Now, I use the computer more than the television and I just download stuff like television series, movies and other shows available online. But after downloading them it doesn’t feel the same way. It doesn’t have the excitement which I used to feel as a kid waiting for my favourite shows.
In the ’90s, when my friends and I used to propose to girls then our first step was to write letters which were called ‘love letters’. But apart from innocent boys like us, back then there were stalkers. Now, there are stalkers but most of them are online and can easily see other people’s Facebook profiles to know about them. And, of course, now there are no ‘love letters’ either but Facebook chat, messages, WhatsApp, Hike, etc. which have taken the place of love letters. There were lots of challenges and struggles faced by us as lovers. These struggles and challenges have reduced now but these struggles, I feel, used to make the relationships stronger and they had their own charm.
Now, we can also shop online from websites like Flipkart, Myntra, Amazon etc. Today, shopping is not a very big deal. I remember those days, when I used to wander from shop to shop for watches, shoes, casual T-shirts with my friends and family. This thing is hard to find in today’s life.
Earlier, I had to wait for the release of music cassettes of films. The excitement I used to feel when buying them, I don’t think exists in the present time because I can download or simply listen to the music on the internet very easily. Yeah, it is easy now. But after getting the things easily, after a few times, they do not seem to have the value they once had.
So, as we can see, technology is getting better and better but it is also getting old very fast. To keep the excitement alive we want the technology to constantly improve. What I want to say is that, sometimes, we should also try the old ways.