Distraction

The word is itself significant, and when said, it makes a statement itself. Meaning I found on the internet,” a thing that prevents someone from concentrating on something else.”

From the very beginning in life, we are habitual of listening to this word. When we were kids, it was quite often teachers used to say about the majority of us in the PTM he/she is lost and mostly distracted in class. He is smart but needs to put in a little more effort and stop distracting himself/herself. I still can recall how the tiny chirp of the birds or a horn sound used to attract our attention and then the round of thoughts that used to gallop in our childish mind. The imaginary stories that the innocent mind used to make about the giants and bad people running behind us to get hold.

A few days passed when I saw the video of Swami in which he told us that we are the champions when it comes to distracting ourselves, and now the new mode of distraction is our own best friend, his highness the Mobile. A small electronic device that has taken over the majority of our lives control. A survey was done, and it was concluded that, on average, an individual checks his phone for more than 100 times a day and makes the phone’s power button to be most used part of the device. IF you are a Samsung user, you check the same on the user device as it has a feature that allows us to check the average usage of the device for a week, the most used app, and the duration of the call made and received.

Technology can be an eye-opener, and yes, if we can average out the time that we spend on this friend of ours, we can conclude that we put in more effort and energy to make online friends rather than give time to the actual ones we have. Take some time to analyse how much time we deliver to your family and friends physically, and how much time we give to the online one? Even if we meet some online friends of ours physically, we are busy conversating with our online friends.(Give it a try and let me know if I am wrong, and I would love to be proved wrong here).

We have lost the charm of using watches(Wrist) as we have a mobile phone, but if we try to understand, we use the phone to check the time but end up wasting 10 to 15 minutes on an average checking out other notification, and if we are not busy this can go up to hours.

When television was invented and became a part of every household, all members used to come together and enjoyed the single show used to telecast. With time new shows, new channels and unlimited channels got introduced, and the concept of distraction increased. Once a reason to make everyone come together and have quality time becomes the reason for fights, everyone has their own choices. And it was not long that television was called the idiot box, full of distraction and information overload.

OTT and other social sites have taken over, and the level of distraction and information has peaked. Now we need to know everything, but we can’t recall it if it asked about something. We are so distracted that we can’t even remember what we have studied and read a few days before.

Going back to this generation’s kids, I fear for them to be lost in this full of distraction world. The teenagers are in more danger of losing their identity as they are more prone to this virtual hike in the world and constant comparison among the peer group. Stacking on roads is a past thing kids have to face the same in the virtual world and to be competitive, they sometimes lose their own identity.

I know this is normal for them; I still fear for the fresh minds to get distracted and lose track. I wish I be proved wrong on this front, but till then, let’s see how many of you can ask yourself, are you the champions of distraction or are you people mindful.