I was waiting for a person sitting in a small cafe in downtown Addis Ababa. Opposite to where I sat, I saw a lady ordering a soft drink. Her beauty and acts must have attracted me. I focused. She began drinking. She seemed to be taken in thinking and start making moves along the music. And she stopped. Touching her mobile, she called. She was evidently bored. I couldn’t make any moves because I was on date myself. Have you thought of what would happen? It would get uglier but the lady for some reasons held my attention.
Minutes after her friend came. It seems she got a relief relieved but the friend didn’t waste time to engage in a phone call. She went on talking, talking for a long time. Then she stopped. Engage in a brief conversation with a friend in person. Then, the friend gets back to the phone call. The bored lady didn’t have a choice but she also started phone conversation. That moment reminds me of a poem by Luke Holm.
The real world is fading,
just drifting away
while I’m left debating
society’s decay.
I live in a generation consumed by devices a time when reality no longer entices. It’s at the point where we’ve closed ourselves off– where talking’s taboo and eye contact is scoffed.
On that moment I longed for old good days, a time people used to give undivided attention to one antother. I wished we were once back in a time that people gathered round the fireplace and told jokes to one another. I also began to contemplate what people call advancement. To be distant in emotion, to be senseless and not to share a moment with somebody, you are close to the new normal. It is fair to wonder whether this is really the advancement the innovators intended to.
Don’t get me wrong technolgy in itself is a blessing. But when it alinates you with the person very near to you, does it really matter?
I think everyone of us have similar experiences. Many people are addicted to TV shows, radio, social media chatting or long hours of phone conversation. Once when I went to my hometown, I had such similar experiences. My families were very attentive to watching a TV show than talking to me. This was the time I began contemplating what our addiction to technology is taking us.
What we are heading to with the technological advancement and the rise of social media? If it affected us this much, how much would it change the world in the future? How far and for what purpose it should serve is what everyone must discuss.
On 2014 English poet Gary Turk had ignited discussion by his viral poem video “Look up.” Turk said: “I have 422 friends, yet I’m lonely. I speak to all of them every day, yet none of them really know me.” Technology has riped off people’s real moment and what is really happening aroud them. Turk criticizes the online generation for “living like robots” by constantly relying on devices for human connections.
In the video, characters are seen left sitting alone while their friends stare at their phones. “We’re becoming unsocial; it no longer satisfies to engage with one another and look into someone’s eyes,” he warns.
Somehow, this needs to be a way to remind people what they are missing in life. They must know real moments with friends, families and other people won’t be replaced by anything. This is paramount especially for young generation as they are heavily dependent on technology.
BY KFLEEYESUS ABEBE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD SUNDAY EDITION 22 MAY 2022
