A Right Way Of Using Smartphones
Smartphones and technology are often criticized. We often get to listen to these things that smartphones had given us several problems with a few conveniences. We have shorter attention spans, we do not have good hobbies and we do not know how to entertain ourselves besides our smartphones. These are some real issues and worthy to be paid attention to. They are meant to be solved.
But if we look at people who have seen the era without smartphones and now are living in this unbelievable time of history. Yes! I am talking about old age people. People of days before the 2000s. They can be our parents, our grandparents or an uncle of old age that we know. As they have spent their days and night without smartphone devices. They know how to entertain themselves. They are aware of other distractions that are not virtual.
When people like start using smartphones. They use it in a very different way. They know the importance of cameras in our phones. They try to capture every moment they can. They never do this to post it to Instagram or to put stories. They do not look for places that are Instagrammable. They save memories for themselves. They use the camera properly. You probably have seen them wonder about the video calls. They know the real importance of it. They have seen the days when they were used to communicate through letters. And now we can just Whatsapp anything.
Yet we still think that they do not know how to use smartphones.
They try to live every moment as they can and they save and make memories for themselves. Not for Snapchat. They do not look at old pictures to create through back posts on Instagram, they look at old pictures to live those days again.
Yet we still think they do not know how to fit in this modern world. We still believe that we have differences. We are way too different from each other.
Last week I met an old man. He is not from my relatives. He is just from acquaintances. I observed this behavior from him. He was not that much of a phone addict as the people of our generation are, his hands were not even smooth on smartphones. He was using his phone as the old age people most of the time use. But he was trying to capture every moment it was like he was having a good time more than anyone of us.
Actually, we were in my room sitting he was singing while I was playing piano with him. These were very good moments and he was trying to capture every bit of that memorable time. He was truly enjoying it. This whole scene made me realize that old age people may not be that much tech-savvy. But they know how to use it properly. They do not get addicted to these devices very quickly rather they know how to properly integrate them.
How come that they can do this and we do not?
It is just that they have seen those days without smartphone devices. They are aware of the concept of distractions other than smartphones. It is because in the days of their childhood they had activities other than watching poems on their dad’s tab on the weekends. They were the people who were interested in karates and sports rather than games on phones. They have spent time with themselves doing nothing but just getting bored. They were the people who know that doing a long walk can offer them brilliant thoughts and insights.
As the Fredrich Nietzsche said;
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
In these modern days, we can help ourselves by trying to get ourselves bored. By trying to spend some time with ourselves without getting distracted by screens. We need to get more comfortable with ourselves rather than our smartphones. We should work on ourselves. We should have and maintain good and healthy hobbies. We should realize that phone belongs to us but they do not define us. We are not our smartphones. We arewhat we are. We are, that we still need to seek, that is what we are.