15-year-old Mini Karmarkar and her friends spend more time with one another over the phone than in person. Her mother Anusha is worried to find the group of adolescent girls often sitting quietly in her daughter's room. Lately, Anusha has started to miss as the group of girls sits quietly in her room; she misses the chatter and humdrum that would usually surround the chirpy girls would generally create in the house.
"They sit in her room and just do not talk. Instead, while reading something on their phones, suddenly one of the five might burst into a fit of laughter that quickly turns into giggles before fading away. All this while contorted and incomplete giggle - reading something on their phones, Then another friend would lazily stretch a hand out and grab her phone charger out of the bag, her eyes still glued to the cellphone," exclaims a worried Anusha, who is a working professional and mother to 15-year-old Mini.
More and more, flocks of boys and girls are seen hustled into groups, staring into their phones, taking an occasional selfie and barely ever speaking to each othernot making any personal conversation whatsoever. "There is so much to do online - I catch up on a TV series on Voot, international bands often launch videos of new songs or other tid-bits online, then Coldplay launched the video of their new song, plus I have to attend to my social networking sites too," explains Mrinali Sen with utmost urgency, as she her lips pursed as she waits for her phone to switch back on.
What Is Technoference?
Called Technoference, these youngsters are not the only ones affected by the massive influx of Internet in everyone's lives. In her 2013 TED Talk, MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle said, "Some of the things we do now with our devices are things that, only a few years ago, we would have found odd or disturbing, but they've quickly come to seem familiar, just how we do things... People text or do e-mail during corporate board meetings. They text and shop and go on Facebook during classes, during presentations, actually, during all meetings. People talk to me about the important new skill of making eye contact while you're texting."
Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) reports of the first quarter of 2016 corroborate these findings. Users of India's top telecom service providers Airtel, Idea and Vodafone are consuming more data than voice calling, according to their latest quarterly reports.
While revenue generated by telecom companies by means of data usage has shot up by 28.04%, 75% and 45% for Airtel, Idea and Vodafone respectively, the revenue generated by voice calling has dropped by 6.08 % and 2.98 % for Airtel and Idea.
This data evidently reflects a trend among customers who are spending more on Internet than on voice calling. Given the wide variety of smartphones to choose from, this trend reflects on the high data consuming tendencies of the users now.
Earlier, it was the idiot box that demanded such attention. However, a television also provided time and space for a family to sit and watch the tube together. but things were not as bad back then given that family could sit and watch TV together. With people moving out of their hometowns looking for jobs and avenues of education, their world began to shrink, quite literally.
"We prefer texting over Facebook or WhatsApp over making phone calls not just because of its ease but also to cut the immediacy. This is good in a lot of ways, but it also mars the beauty of extremely personal relations like those between a mother and son, or between a couple," says psychology student Abinas Deb.
This problem worsens when adults do not pay heed to how they use mobile phones around children. According to a 2014 study conducted by LiveScience, 73% adults use mobile devices during meal. There may be healthier ways to use the devices and people should perhaps consider be looking into them now since such behaviour results in the undermining personal conversation.
"People avoid real conversations and opt for instant messaging thanks to its ease. But we cannot always go for the easy way out. This happens because of the addictive nature of visual interface that the latest technology employs," says clinical psychologist and physiotherapist Kaehalee Shinde.
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