Personal Touch - Where has it gone?
To drive away the dark clouds hanging over my head, I was browing through some of the frequest blog links that I visit and chanced upon this article. This piece of writing talks about how modern gadgets have taken over many of the traditional activities - narrating a cute little incident in a bank.
This made me think of how much change in lifestyle has come about.
-- Gone are those days when people would write letters to inform of events and happenings and make enquiries about the other person's well-being. These are the days when you pick the phone, speak a few words , or worse even - send an SMS or an E-mail. No longer does anybody feel the envelope and try to guess who would have written the letter based on the strength of the ball-point pen imprint. The art of recognising the handwriting from the address to identify the bearer of news is no more.
--As a kid, we used to make regular trips to our hometown to meet our relatives - atleast once a year. Even today, most of my relatives make a point to visit my Patti atleast - if not all the relatives, whenever they pass by Chennai. But most of the folks in my family tree are in touch (that too rarely) only via phones / e-mails. Even within the city, hardly anybody visits the other person. Is it diwali - oh! okay let me call everybody and wish ... No longer does one see the happiness on the other person's face when you wish him or ask about something. One is not present to see how fast or quick a kid is growing , or much an elder person has aged. You no longer see the frowns or wrinkles of your grandparents, not the toothless smiles of a relative kid. Amma was just telling me the other day how she was amazed to see Latha(my cousin's) daughter grow up so fast - inspite of having seen her once probably every 2 months. When I go back, I don't know what I would say!
-- For New Year, without fail - we 3 would go out and select choicest of cards (keeping in mind the price also - for we would send out nearly 50 cards) to send across to folks. We made sure that we addressed it to every single person in the family. Slowly, this practice died. It was just calling folks on New Year's Eve and wishing them! When internet was still a new and fancy thing, there would be scores of e-cards floating about here and there - but now you hardly see those too... Some people have people's b'days/anniversaries jotted in a e-address book and when the time comes, the e-address book itself will create a card and send it across to the concerned person. You are not even aware that you wished someone, until the other person takes pain to send back a return card/email.
I am not blaming anybody - even i fall prey to all written above. It is just that it is saddening to see how much the quality of life has decreased with the onset of technology which was invented with the specific purpose of improving our life. The paradoxy of nature!
This made me think of how much change in lifestyle has come about.
-- Gone are those days when people would write letters to inform of events and happenings and make enquiries about the other person's well-being. These are the days when you pick the phone, speak a few words , or worse even - send an SMS or an E-mail. No longer does anybody feel the envelope and try to guess who would have written the letter based on the strength of the ball-point pen imprint. The art of recognising the handwriting from the address to identify the bearer of news is no more.
--As a kid, we used to make regular trips to our hometown to meet our relatives - atleast once a year. Even today, most of my relatives make a point to visit my Patti atleast - if not all the relatives, whenever they pass by Chennai. But most of the folks in my family tree are in touch (that too rarely) only via phones / e-mails. Even within the city, hardly anybody visits the other person. Is it diwali - oh! okay let me call everybody and wish ... No longer does one see the happiness on the other person's face when you wish him or ask about something. One is not present to see how fast or quick a kid is growing , or much an elder person has aged. You no longer see the frowns or wrinkles of your grandparents, not the toothless smiles of a relative kid. Amma was just telling me the other day how she was amazed to see Latha(my cousin's) daughter grow up so fast - inspite of having seen her once probably every 2 months. When I go back, I don't know what I would say!
-- For New Year, without fail - we 3 would go out and select choicest of cards (keeping in mind the price also - for we would send out nearly 50 cards) to send across to folks. We made sure that we addressed it to every single person in the family. Slowly, this practice died. It was just calling folks on New Year's Eve and wishing them! When internet was still a new and fancy thing, there would be scores of e-cards floating about here and there - but now you hardly see those too... Some people have people's b'days/anniversaries jotted in a e-address book and when the time comes, the e-address book itself will create a card and send it across to the concerned person. You are not even aware that you wished someone, until the other person takes pain to send back a return card/email.
I am not blaming anybody - even i fall prey to all written above. It is just that it is saddening to see how much the quality of life has decreased with the onset of technology which was invented with the specific purpose of improving our life. The paradoxy of nature!
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