I want to be a Smartphone in my Next Life!

A 4 year Kid, who does not know what is Social Network, Emails, Chat Apps etc, prays to a God – “Hey Lord, Please make me a smartphone”. This young kid is asking such wish to god, because he sees that his parents and elders in home are completely glued to this magical device called Smartphone and has no time to look up to him or to play with him. Smartphone is getting more attention in the house than the child. His parents are present there physically, but their minds are somewhere else.

It’s so true that this lifeless device has become an inseparable part of our day to day life, our existence and to our real-time relationships. Our physical space has been punctured by the existence of 24×7 connectivity and we are addicted to it, which we call as social media epidemic.

We started feeling restless if we do not look to our phone after every few minutes. We react faster to a phone beep, notification or a message compared to a call by a family member from a different room. Any Place or an event in our life is surrounded by that very moment when we managed to get a perfect photo to upload, tag and check-in on social media. Our attention is purely on getting it out there, rather than enjoying that very moment with our loved ones. We lose our peace of mind when we don’t get connectivity on our holiday and are unable to post pictures online. We no longer get the same emotional memories from our holidays as we used to get before; everything has been diluted to the virtual world.

We all need to come out of this head-down syndrome, we all need to connect and communicate in real world to the lives we touch. We need to bring this technology to good use and not become slave of it. It is good we are connected virtually, but this should not substitute the need of connecting real time.

So how we do it? It’s simple; the solution is called Digital Break. This means, when you return home from work, as a family, you will turn-off, mute all your digital devices for few hours every day and will use this time to bond together – to chat, to play, to learn, to teach and to live together in real-life.You will soon realize the beautiful world outside smartphone and/or other digital devices.

So, what’s your Digital Break Schedule?