Thirty Days In October And The Day After - Day 3

Technology and Human Touch

Last Sunday when I up caught with my school friends, one of them had a very interesting thing to share. My friend has been a frequent visitor to hospitals due to an unfortunate accident that he met with about 10 years ago. He observes that in the initial phase of his treatment when he used to visit the his doctor in Out Patient Department seeing people talk to each other (this would mostly be the discussions among the patient and the relatives accompanying) was very common. That was almost about a decade ago. Things have changed now, he says with a lament. These days when he visits the doctor he rarely sees people talking to each other but deeply engrossed with their mobile...either playing games or talking to someone. Why can't they just to talk to each other? he often asks himself.

For precisely the same reason another friend of mine refuses to carry a mobile. Though he does remember to carry with him the mobile numbers of all his friends and relatives just in case a need arises. His argument, people had ways to reach each other and were better connected when mobiles were not there. In case of worst case scenario he could always turn to us. He may appear to old fashioned in his ways but is strong maintaining the human / personal touch rather than letting technology do that job. He still makes it a point to visit personally and greet someone rather than using the phone - an approach which he immensely enjoys.

Both my friends make very interesting point. They believe in use of technology but not at the cost of human touch that we are slowly and steadily loosing with the advancement of technology. How adapt to growing use of technology in our daily lives and still strengthen the personal bonds that bind us together without loosing out on the human element is what we will all need to answer in the days to come.