Omkar Dattatray
This is the age of science and technology and internet has become modern God. Internet and mobile has become indispensible and we cannot live with ease without these. But then as they say excess of everything is bad and so the same logic applies to the excessive use of mobile. Proper use of mobile is all good but the total dependence on mobile has eroded the social and moral fabric of the society. This does not mean that we should not use these modern gadgets but use them properly. There is no denying the fact that we have become addicted to the mobile and selfie .The misuse of the mobile and the addiction of the selfie are the bane of the modern life. Mobile is most misused by the younger generation and the student community. One may be at home or in a social function there is calm and quite atmosphere as all people are busy with their mobiles and internet. This has eroded the credibility of the social gathering. Such is the addiction of the mobile and selfie that even children are not ashamed and they remain talking for hours together and the children have become aggressive and they do not care a fig for the elders. In our homes children and all members of the home talk and are busy with their mobiles and they have no time to talk with each other and develop the social interaction and this is very unfortunate. All the people remain busy with their cell phones and they have no time to talk to the elders. People forget their meals even and such is the addiction of the mobile phones. Along with the excessive dependence on the mobiles the fashion of taking selfie has become the habit of the children and the students and even the senior citizens. All of us have become habitual of taking selfie that taking selfie has become a fashion and craze of being superior. The selfie taking has lead to many accidents as the people especially young ones take the risk in taking selfie on the mountains, hazards places and the big rivers and this has brought trouble to us. Not only this value system of the society has been eroded by the addiction to mobile and selfie taking. There has been no love for the family members as all are busy with chatting through mobile and they have no time to attend to the family matters. In fact we have become so addicted to the mobiles that we often ignore our responsibilities as the active members of the society. We give preference to mobile chatting than face to face talk and in doing this the social values are at stake. Anyway the excessive use of the mobile and internet has lead to the downfall of the power of reasoning as all the information is ready made available through mobile internet and this leads to the lack of human personality and therefore we should think about the bane of the excessive use of the mobile and addiction to it and selfie .The excessive use and in fact the addiction to mobile internet and selfie has made our life easy but at the same time has made man slave of the mobile telephony. We should self-introspect and see where we are going wrong so that we lead a peaceful life without the bane of selfie and phone addiction. The big disadvantage of the mobile telephony is that the moral and cultural values are eroded and there is no respect for the social norms and value system and this is very sad. Man is social by nature and he has to abide with the social values and has to adhere to the moral and social values. The morality and sociability is at stake and this is a sign of a backward society and thus we are going towards the old days and this is not good for the society. Inspite of all the advantages of the mobile phones, their excessive use and virtual addiction has robed the society of the family and social values. Not that we should not use the mobile phones and the selfie but what is needed is that we should not become slaves of the mobile and internet but become their masters. Anyhow what is needed is the proper use of these inventions of the science and technology and must avoid total dependence on these.
(The writer is a retired education officer and columnist)
