APRIL 2, 2020
KARO-NA! Artificial World
The Time Magazine for the month of April, covers an apt article “Does remote work actually work?”, written by Alana Semuels. It is an interesting read and talks about meetings via holograms. Till now, I was not aware of this way of meeting, although I have used other online tools to chat with friends and teachers. But there is always the first time - which all of us are experiencing in presenti in one form or the other. This, certainly, is first of its own of kind experience for my generation i.e. to live life locked down. I finished my grade 11 exams on February 24, 2020 and was excited to live my last year of school. I had grand plans for the year as I was getting ready to submit my college applications to various colleges in the US and India by the end of the year. In last couple of years, I invested serious amount of time in my social initiative “PROTEEN” and tennis. My next six months were very crucial to upgrade and update my social initiatives, to improve my UTR ranking, my Japanese language skills etc. In order to achieve it, I had scheduled multiple sessions with my teachers, counsellors, and tennis coaches. However, the current phase of three weeks lockdown and an uncertain future thereafter is nerve wrecking.
I am learning to live in this world of social distancing and technology is my saviour. Skype, Zoom, Houseparty, Flock, and TimeOut are my new hangout places, which I visit everyday. I know that all these tools are enablers to partially achieve part of the plan, however, it is really difficult to stay focused and so easy to slip in comfort of Netflix or chat sessions with friends. I completely agree with the philosophy of Thalia Wheatley, a professor of psychological and brain science at Dartmouth College; “Screens are distancing”; “In face to face communication, you are sharing a moment in time and space with someone - that is incredibly compelling for our ancient brains”. However, I do not have a choice except to work remotely.
All my friends are facing this dilemma - that it is so hard to get on with a distant way of learning and maintain balance with the pleasure part of technology. Another downside of living via technology, is that you lose the concept of “Time is the essence” and fifteen minutes become one hour and one hour becomes five hours. Today, when tech companies are employing psychologists and sociologists to devise ways of extracting time from users/subscribers, it is hard to keep an eye on the goal and easy to get dragged into technological voyeurism. With artificial intelligence, collecting and processing our personal data, Facebook and Google know us better than our own selves. They know when we get up, what we eat, read, watch, and whom we talk to and meet. I am realising that technology is shaping my desires and needs. I am struggling to stay sane and focused. My father recently informed me that investigators in criminal and financial investigations in the US spend more time in investigating electronic data of the accused and physical investigation is not effective anymore.
Every situation has an antidote. In the current situation of lockdown, my parents keep me sane by having control over my time and daily routine. I fear that this distant world may not be the real world for us. It certainly doesn’t work for me!