Usually zombie-horror genre movies start with virus spreading across the world and then the infected people turning into flesh-eating zombies. Here in reality, most of us were digital zombies but the spread got severe with the actual virus pandemic came into picture. We have spent half the year with our laptops and mobile phones, this time we can blame it on the world’s situation. With a sad truth of confusing inter-personal relationships as physical intrusions, most of us are glued to social media. Rather than utilizing the opportunity to spend time with family, we are ready to fight bots in a virtual game world. As the saying goes
“The distraction has become the norm, rather than the exception”
-Patrik Wincent, Swedish TV personality, psychotherapist
In the modern world, avoiding technology is completely impossible, as they have already become part of us, replacing half of our hideous tasks. The power of technology has shown its positive side specially during this social distancing norm. To minimize human contact, most of us have adopted technology to run our daily life, little more than before. Starting from reading e-newspapers to getting groceries we have indulged in digital tools. This has greatly put the lockdown situation little less stressful than it looks. The distractions became a necessity to fight against the pandemic and the dependence on digital technology turned as a life saver for many. For instance, using telemedicine app for getting regular checkups virtually done than taking our elderly ones out in the infectious situation is one of the helpful things technology gave us. Even though, becoming digital zombie is something worse, as long as we are in control we can turn the dependence on digital tools a very positive approach for helping ourselves and people around us. As the saying goes
“Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.”
-Stewart Brand, Writer
A quick tip to survive this long year and after effects.
- Always know the difference between “Necessity” and “Addiction”
- If digital addiction worsens, it affects both our mental and physical health, seek help from loved ones when things get out of control.
- As the proverb goes “Rome was not built in a day”, habitual things cannot be changed overnight, discipline and time will be the cure.
- Adopt traditional activities like board games (dices, chess), baking/ cooking or other ways to spend quality time with families than glued to smartphones.
- Make sure kids have an active role online and do the three C’s (creating, collaborating, and communicating) during screen-time as it will keep them out of the digital zombie culture.
- Save up the travel expenses in lockdown and plan a trip, when things get back normal.
- Multitasking is not a skill, when doing things that does not match (eg., mobile phones while eating) as it induces unhealthy lifestyle.
- Follow some own set of rules to reduce screen time and give small treats to yourself for that. Appreciation works for both humans and pets.
- Start using digital tools for social distancing than using it for distancing from our loved ones.
Last but not least, enjoy this roller-coaster ride with mask and sanitizers……