The widespread use of computerized mobile phones is one of the many indicators of global technology adoption. It is good for everyone to embrace technology anyway. Perhaps it makes the communication extra easy. Alexandar Graham Bell (who made the first telephone in 1878) and IBM & Bellsouth (that made the first smartphone in 1993) celebrated their inventions which they hoped they were going to make human interaction and communication much easier, and of course restricted to the ethical concerns. However, most of us especially the youths have taken sole interest to misuse the smartphones and the internet. If the inventors were reinstated to their live beings, most of us would definitely be sued to the highest law for manipulation of their intents.
It is with the smartphone generation that conscious is overpowered by fatal and mentally disturbing scenes. It will take no one ten seconds before taking a photo of fatal accident victims, a bruised couple or anybody struggling for life in much agony. The most recent encounter I had was on Facebook. My innocent eyes landed on a photo of a lady stubbed with a knife in the left eye. This is not even worth mentioning! I doubt not that i was right to unfriend the person who had posted it. An observer would rather take a photo than help the victim in the critical condition. Observer’s help is delayed until the victim becomes mortally absent, after which, the photos will be shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all other internet-supported sites, asking the far away audiences to type ‘R.I.P.’ As if the RIP is more important than preventing the permanent demise.
Smartphones are also withdrawal devices from personal interactions. The devices are one of the greatest barriers to the much treasured interpersonal interactions. Individuals will prefer viewing less important posts shared on social media than listen to the persons in their most proximity. The youth would prefer ignoring to converse with the guest at home to liking and commenting on a Facebook post or tweets that have less or no value to them.
The devices have as well deprived us off the respect we had to the people the former generation has valued. We are not even surprised to find today a ‘child’ telling his/her mother to wait as the child will attend later on to an assigned task. Because they are on phone? Maybe this is witnessed in contexts where we have the “digital parents” who have that urge to know what is new in the technological world. All blame to smartphones because this has not been observed to be a great concern among the youths who possess Kabambes instead.
We are also very busy doing everything intangible with the phones. That sense of ‘The time lost can never be recovered’ is nothing to go by. When the development-minded individuals are busy trying to make the ends meet, we the unwise ones are busy browsing with our portable gadgets. All the “returns” we can calculate at the end of the day are in terms of the amount we spent on purchasing the browsing bundles. A person is not only losing time but he’s also losing monetary resources. They definitely do not remember that money spent with working for more soon elapses and they are left with nothing else.
They have also enabled the individuals to be nothing else but active “copy pasters.” Creativity and originality has become an aspect of the past. Gone are the days when stun action would be taken to someone who copied someone else’s work. We are in the era in which an individual initiates statement (or even a fun) and in a fraction of a second the statement comes back to him from another source. Others take the lazy role of modifying it to add a different ‘taste.’ We have the ‘copy pasting specialists’ who will today share a very inspiring or heart-touching message and they be the same ones who will share a secular and irresponsible message. yes they exist.
It’s no harm finalizing by asking everyone to be responsible and take every step with active consultation of the rational mind and personal conscious. I believe your conscience is one of the best advisers that The Almighty gifted you. The conscious of a sane man never lies, you only ignore it and that’s why you do the wrong.
The Lazarus Nadebu 