Opinion | Cursed TechGen: Data-Drugged, Distant And Dead Inside

Lt Gen Devendra Pandey

Smartphones have reached an estimated 97 per cent of Indian youth, with similar trends evident across the world.

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“We Have Given Our Children Everything They Could Want, But Are We Losing Them to the Very World We Created for Them?"

Hunched backs. Earphones plugged in. Eyes either fixed on a screen or staring into nothingness. The beautiful natural world around them has ceased to exist. For the ‘TechGen’, humanity seems to have taken a back seat, while the digital world has become reality. On streets and roads, in drawing rooms and lounges, colleges and university spaces, among hawkers and air travellers, in BMWs or rickshaws, people are unsmiling, busy living in an imaginary world created by digital technology.

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Dead to the outside world and seemingly disconnected within, people are emerging into a disturbing new reality, where cameras record an injured person dying on the street rather than someone stepping in to help. It is a world our generation has created in the name of progress, sacrificing humanism for a tech-enabled, efficient but socially struggling generation. As parents, we have placed smartphones in the hands of children as young as two, allowing them to consume digital content curated specifically for their age group. We proudly showcase their navigational skills on screens, often using these devices to buy ourselves some time, whether for personal needs or work.

Smiles seem to be missing even from the faces of billionaire social media platform owners such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, whose platforms generate and curate content for a connected and empowered class. Smartphones have reached an estimated 97 per cent of Indian youth, with similar trends evident across the world. Unfortunately, those consuming digital content also seem to be losing their smiles, their social lives increasingly fractured. They remain digitally connected to a distant world while living in isolation within their own homes.

The contrast is difficult to ignore. On one side, unimaginable wealth is being accumulated; on the other, people are becoming increasingly dependent on a stream of data that never ends.

The online content business model draws and rewards attention, but consumers pay a price in the form of isolation and a break from humanity. The human cost is being borne by the TechGen.

Smiles are disappearing. Anger is taking their place, both among the Elons and Marks of the world and among the consumers addicted to the digital........

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