Private People : Blog # 125

Private People

           There has never been a time when the mankind has been more connected than today, thanks to the social media and Internet. All our dear and near ones are just a click away.

            In the realm of anthropology, there is a concept called Dunbar’s number. Defining it broadly is the number of people one maintains a social relation ship with. We might think that the recent advancements should have definitely enhanced the limits of our Dunbar’s number.  But have they?

  The irony is that these very advancements are making people more and more private. As much as there is access to each other, all of us are confining ourselves in to our own spaces.

            For instance, how often do all the members of the family sit together in front of the Television these days? The youngsters in the family will invariably have laptops and they will prefer the tubes than the channels.

            There was a time when the phone calls were shared between all the members of the family. Today, when even a school goer prefers his/her cell phone, there is no need to share a call.

            A family used to come together during the morning tea for the Newspaper. There used to be some sort of tug and pull at the paper and a subsequent sharing of viewpoints at various reports. Today’s news comes in Apps. Distributing the newsprint might look archaic.

            Earlier, people used to talk. There used to be soulful discussions. Today, we tweet! And there is much that is lost between the lines or worse, some of us read too much in to the lines.

          If one were to think on the lines of Kishore Biyani, shopping is a family occasion for us. In today’s world of e-shopping, how often do we go shopping as a family?

            All of these points towards the lack of touch points in all our relationships. We are all becoming increasingly private. For all the tall talk about technological advancements and the social metamorphosis we are going through, the ethos of human relationships remain unchanged. It requires interaction to sustain.

The intention here is not to envisage a life back in time where we go back to the Amish world so that we interact more.  But we should look at finding ways to interact more as human beings because personal interactions are more enriching than the digital ones, at least in our times.

Arun Babu.

Tweet