Hi everyone. Hope you all are doing fine. I am again back with one of the most interesting topic that is an integral part of everyone’s life including not only adults or young people out there but people across all the age groups like children and senior citizens as well. So, we are here to talk about gadgets/ phones or technology which everyone of us are consuming on a daily basis. Sometimes these gadgets is our need but most of the times gadgets have become our habit.

So I hope we all understand the difference between “Need” and ” Habit”. Let me explain you all with the help of an example- We all work for our living most of us have a desk job and for performing tasks at desk job, there is a mandatory requirement for working on gadgets like desktops/ Laptops and phones. This mandatory requirement is called “Need”. Now Let’s say that your day has finished and your office work is all complete. However, you are still browsing your phone and watching some videos or short reels etc. But these videos are not related to your job or work or for any educational purpose. These are just random 15 seconds or 60 seconds videos just to relax or pass your time. Now this is a “Habit”

So you need to understand this differentiation very clearly. We cannot stop ourselves doing our mandatory office work on gadgets. Also, as soon as our office work is completed, we cannot refrain ourselves from calling someone dear to us or receiving calls from our family or even spending some time to visit our social media platforms etc. But everything has a limit and beyond limit, everything is dangerous. There is no harm relaxing yourself, there is no harm visiting your social media platforms and connecting yourself with the entire world but a problem arises when you refrain getting disconnected from gadgets. This is harmful.

So, Lets discuss about effects that gadgets has posed for us in our lives and how can we improve and how can we try and come up with the solution where we can use our gadgets within the limits:

Let’s talk about effects first:

1. Lost Human Touch: This is the biggest drawback that technology or gadgets has posed for us. With internet, we have definitely came closer to the entire world but when we talk about “Human Touch”, it is completely gone. And during Covid times situation has multiplied. Please understand that a gadget cannot give you a hug virtually. The feelings that you get when looking into a person’s eyes standing right next to you is not even close to what you get when you interact with people virtually.

2. Productivity Time lost: This is also one of the major side effect of gadgets. I have seen so many people who are actively engaged in Facebook/ Instagram or other social media platforms even during their work hours. They usually pick up their gadgets for a different cause and they ultimately end up wasting their crucial productivity time. In today’s era, time is money. 

3. Young generations impacted: Above point was explicitly for working professionals but as far as young generations are concerned, they are also hugely impacted. Their focus is diverted from study time to “Phone Time”/ “Reel Time”. They are spending hours and hours watching videos which are unrelated to their studies or their curriculum. And most importantly, nowadays internet contains all sort of information very openly. And hence you can understand that the kind of content that our young generations are consuming will have a direct impact on their personalities. They are not only losing their productive or their constructive time but they are even compromising on their personality build up

4. Friends/ Family time on a Toss: This is something that we have all observed. Have you noticed that now a days, we have become only physically present but mentally absent when we are around our lived ones. Because we are always on Phones or on our gadgets. We are either talking to someone else while the person next to you who is available feels like you are completely absent. Many a times, we are just browsing Facebook or Instagram or short reels. What sort of quality time can we actually give to our loved ones in such scenarios? Due to increased phone time, relationships have gone for a toss and that is the reason we notice lot of divorces around us these days

5. Sleep Disorders/ Mental Health Disorders or Physical illness: Yes, you read it right. All these disorders are side effects of our “Gadgets time”. People keep on browsing their phones for a long time and they forget the time and realise later that they have lost hours in browsing something which was not even relevant. People go to bed late and then either wake up late or may be compromise on their sleep. Again, as I said that there are all sorts of information available to browse for on the internet. Sometimes abusive or aggressive content drive youngsters into extreme mental disorders like Depression. Sleep or mental disorders again breed other disorders like eye problems/ back problems and even disorders related to digestion. They all together pose serious health issues

6. Rise in need of self glorification or instant gratification: Have you seen today’s youngsters or even kids. They have their own Facebook or Instagram accounts and keep on posting their pictures as to how happy they are and how their lives are better than others. They keep on waiting for one single like or comment. If they don’t get sufficient likes then they get disheartened and I think we have heard news about kids even committing suicide because of these reasons. Apart from that one positive comment can make their day but one negative comment can push them to depression. This is how fragile these children are. These kids don’t understand that this is just a virtual world and you cannot be satisfied virtually. For example- You cannot get satisfied just by looking at the pictures of food virtually. You need actual food to eat if you want to have some satiety value and feel satisfied. 

7. Impacted Relationships between children and parents: I think this is very common to see now a days where parents give their mobile phones to their kids if they cry or are getting bored. Parents sometimes think that children are distraction while they are working. But unfortunately it’s not children who are a distraction but gadgets are. What do you think how children will turn out as adults when they are given gadgets in their growing ages? They lose productive time with parents, with their friends, lose connection with nature etc. Children sometimes start believing that gadgets are the real world and believe me this impacts their mind.

Now having seen these unforeseen effects, Let’s talk about how to manage these effects:

1. Restrict your Gadgets time: It’s your complete will to restrict your unnecessary gadgets time. You can restrict it by setting timer or alarm on your phone that you will watch or browse your phone until this time only. By doing this, you will come to know as to how much time you are investing in browsing phone. Apart from that you may also turn off your notifications of your applications in your phone so that every time you are not notified and then gets attracted towards your phone. Also you need to understand the thin difference between “Urgent” and “Important” work which needs to be done post your office hours. “Urgent” needs to be carried out then and there on priority and “Important” is something that could be taken care of next day and can wait as well. Also make sure that you stop looking at your gadgets at least half an hour before your sleep time so that your sleep is not impacted by the radiations of your gadgets 

2. Understanding the difference between Real World and Reel/ Virtual world: Please sit with yourself in quiet alone time and understand the difference between Real and virtual world. Understand that you can never be satisfied with Virtual world and it will be just a “baseless pit” that can never be filled. 

3. Engage yourself in healthy physical activities and avoid sedentary Lifestyle: Engage yourself in physical activities like Playing some sports like Badminton/ Football/ Cricket/ Gym or Yoga. You can also opt for swimming or gardening or cycling. This will help avoid using your gadgets and will really help you get connected with nature (with reality). The more physically active you will be, more tired you will get and hence less gadgets you will use. You will ultimately improve your mental and physical health as well.

4. Avoid giving gadgets to your kids: During the formative years of children, as parents, I would suggest to avoid giving gadgets to children. As much as possible, take your kids out for a walk/ take your children to some museum/ take your kids to zoo so that your children will have qaulity time with you along with remaining connected with nature.

5. Lead by Example in your house: Take an initiative to stop using gadgets as much as possible and also encourage others in your house especially children. Let your children learn that my parents don’t use phones post office hours and hence they will also learn to play with other kids rather spending time on Gadgets

6. Choose televisions over small Gadgets while watching movies or during relax time: Rather using phones or small gadgets, try to watch shows or movies on television so that it can have less damage to your eyes and to your body and this will be a family time on television rather isolated time on your phone

I hope you liked reading my article. Please let me know if you really liked it.