Like millions of Indians and billions of the world, I too have a smart phone. I have been using the smart phone for various purposes – check emails, take calls, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter and Coo and many more! Eery day a new app / a new program is invented and we download it. I am or I was no exception.
The so-called smart phone made me dumb. I became a toy in the hands of smartphone. It is either a dumb man and smart phone. I became a dumb idiot. I was more interested in flaunting my phone, checking WhatsApp, Facebook and other related social media accounts every minute. My mind stopped thinking; stopped reacting. Earlier my mind used to generate beautiful thoughts; today, it feeds me the WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and other social media’s most useless news. I was thinking, how do I get rid of this curse which, I willingly bought for myself, after paying substantial money for it. Leaving iPhones and other high-end phones a side, for a common man like me Rs. 15,000 for a smart phone is a fortune!
Hence, I decided to get rid of the WhatsApp / Social Media habit. WhatsApp has become not a communication tool, but an obsession. A kind of intoxication. My telephone statistics reveal that 90% of phone’s battery is spent on using WhatsApp! 90 God forbidden percentage of the battery! Crazy! On this Saturday morning (18.09.2021) before leaving for my native village, I sent my last WhatsApp good morning message. What exactly I sent and to whom I sent are immaterial here. It is sufficient to say that I sent my last WhatsApp message on Saturday morning.
55 hours later (today is Monday 27th September), I felt unburdened, light as if I am flying in the air with nobody intruding into my privacy. Life suddenly became very easy, simple, undemanding, unassuming and I felt that I am nearer to reality. Then, what I was before? You will not believe if I tell you that I saw the actual beautiful sunrise on Saturday morning! Should anyone desire to get in touch with me they can always call me… for we have unlimited calling facility; should anyone want to send a message, they can do so through the SMS – short messaging service. The unwanted information, videos and the other useless data and its urgency ceased to exist…they are no more urgent. When I have removed that apparent urgency from life, I became aware of the importance of life and living. For me life has acquired paramount importance.
55 hours later, being away from pop-up news, finance news, political news, sports news, celebrity news, entertainment news, TV news, OTT platforms and the mother of all inclusive WhatsApp…I find life to be peaceful, beautiful and good. It is blissful. It is unique.
I do hope and sincerely pray, that everyone should start appreciating the value of their life. I am not saying they should stop using WhatsApp. No, that is not what I say. That is not for me to say. What I am saying is that everyone should start recognizing the importance of life and reality. 12 years after its invention, I uninstalled WhatsApp successfully! Mark Zuckerberg became history in my life, finally!!!
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
