2024 IRL

 We are trapped in a cage of screens !

Pic courtesy Getty Images

Did you see this new year’s night pic, where everyone took out their phones to click a new year’s celebrations?

Many among noted industrialist Anand Mahindra said: We are trapped in a cage of screens !

In the build up to this New Year’s Eve, I had gone on a 10-day Instagram break. After logging in back on 1st, for few days did not find that urge to scroll through the dopamine. It almost feels like bad hangover at a binge party few days back and I don’t want that again. But yet, I am back at it, another party, another dopamine thrill.

The real question is: Is going completely digital good or bad? Is it part of our evolution into another version of being cyborg? Can we stop this? Or is this better and meant to happen?

For the last few years we are kind of living in “Online" world. Most of our activities, office meetings, our community is digital on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and even dating occurs in the virtual or digital realm. The biggest reason is: We save Time, and we can scale up, we can add more time for the number of relationships and choices we have and most importantly its sustainable too, less emissions, the less we travel. True to a large extent. But that makes us subconsciously consume a lot of content to end up scaling up the number of Digital friends/ followers.

But this instant scalable relationship interactions are not our actual life real. Majority of the love that you get or the hate you receive, the “Looking like WOW” to the memes and trolls, all are part of our scalability to make connections which doesn’t understand you. True connections wont unnecessarily praise or abuse you.

IRL, an acronym for "In Real Life," initially emerged as a distinction between online interactions and face-to-face encounters. In the early days of the internet, when communication primarily took place through text-based platforms and forums, the term was used to emphasize the tangible and physical nature of offline relationships. However, with the advent of social media, the meaning of IRL has evolved.

One of the most renowned names on twitter in the medical community Dr. Abby Philips @liverdoc, in his new year wishes, aptly puts across his best advice for new year:

“You have another life, the one which is real and which is deserving of your time and energy - and it's the one outside your phone and computer screens. When you are gone, social media won't ever miss you. But real people in your real life will “

The Impact on Human Connections: The Sense of of sight, touch, smell.

As technology facilitates connections across geographical boundaries. Virtual friendships, collaborations, and communities have become an integral part of modern life. Social media platforms, online gaming, and virtual events offer spaces for people to connect, share experiences, and build relationships irrespective of physical distances.

However, this shift has also brought about challenges. The screen-mediated nature of virtual interactions can sometimes lead to a sense of detachment and depersonalization. Balancing the convenience of online connectivity with the depth of face-to-face relationships becomes a crucial aspect of managing the evolving dynamics between the digital and physical worlds.

I cannot imagine my childhood spent scrolling reels on phone and looking into small screen for connections. I am really thankful to the “Abey, Chal neeche uthar” group which was thankfully not a whatsapp group used to share memes and none really stepped down! Our was one step downs, joins the other one, together we used to go and shout at the others balcony and says, chal uthar, aaj ka taaza khabar sunatha hoon !

 “Maximise unregretted user time” Elon musk quoted in an interview.

Unregretted. Ask most people, they regret the dopamine hit through drinking, getting high and social media. Coz somewhere they feel, they have been unproductive!

The digital world has bought a lot of comfort, and let’s be honest, the world has progressed too. So, we can’t say technology is evil. I think the point is here a balance. For example, let’s say Twitter, an amazing platform to bring about a lot of change in the society, especially now with a maverick visionary like Elon Musk at the helm of it. But, the armchair activism is bringing no real difference in local community level issues. Just like I can probably sit in India and talk about US politics and comment on it. We are spending time on twitter spaces of other countries issues and really ignoring what’s happening in our own society and building. Yes, I am guilty of that too. We hardly do something significant for our own town and municipality.

I think Elon should create a Twitter Townsquare ; which emphasises on people who join that group on Twitter have to be by default a domicile of that city. If he wishes to roll it out in India, its easy, aadhar card is the best way to let someone join a Twitter Townsquare/ Mumbai for e.g. This Townsquare group will be focussed on topics in that city, advertisers will also jump in since its more focussed group and will help twitter deal with some glitches with hesistance of advertisers due to ideologically issues with the current owner. For these advertisers nothing is personal, they will be back once its flourishing again. The townsquare should host IRLs events and meet ups regularly to bridge the gap between arm chair activisms to doers. More revenues for twitter, more impact for the people!

Twitter Townsquare will be a perfect example of merging URL with IRL “a powerful way to connect with community”- like Andrew Yeung said in his recent tweet.

But it’s not about revenues alone here.

Debating and arguing is world’s favourite pastime. Trust me, I am from Kerala ;)

I am just here for the argument Elon says! Today’s social media algorithms detects what you read and do love arguments, it feeds you more of your kind of topic to keep arguing and limits you from a different point of view. And to make it a digital dopamine is cool to some extent, but it is missing the fun now. We have all become radicalised to extremes. It’s quite visible in the world today.

Obama said recently that one of the things that keeping him awake these days and it’s a problem to solve is the diversity of the media and various version of reality floating around.

Do you remember back in these days, when there were various less media channels and we only had government owned media & new channels and they used to control what content you should consume. The Doordarshan days.

Now Twitter can be a runaway train of digital dopamine it feeds the people hungry for #breakingnews mostly negative one and drag humanity into a highly radicalised pit, coz like Elon himself said, that’s human behaviour, you can’t change it.

Or he can actually change that course. Throughout history there have been men who has changed the course of it and Elon could be one of them. He can create this largest network of Twitter Townsquares linked through digital passes.

Twitter is about politics, Instagram is about lifestyle

I think both try to be both sometimes that’s where the problem lies.

We should bring back news reading/ scrolling like our good old times:

Main supplement (with Business & Sports): Times of India - Twitter

Lifestyle & Entertainment: Bombay Times - Instagram

It’s not old is gold or going back in time. It’s just that we were saner back them. There was a compartmentalisation to what we consume and how we consume. Now it’s a free for all, which may mess up with our life, how we think, how we react.

Elon can actually bridge that gap between a completely controlled media by establishment and a free for all chaotic information.

Between Freedom and Equality, we should always choose Freedom. True freedom is when you can protect the oppressed and not just allow the oppressed just express and do nothing. That’s the problem with free fall digital dopamine media, it doesn’t protect.

It’s just there for the argument!

Greg Isenberg says “Someone will make $1B in the "digital detox" space. 2024 will be the turning point. People are realizing their phones are drugs. It's kinda like fast-food. The Big Mac you eat might have felt good in the moment, but the remorse creeps in as your stomach start turning. Instant gratification of digital devices is turning into instant regret for millions.

The internet used to be a place to get away from real life. Now, real life is a place to get away from the internet.

Some cases digital really helps.Recently while working on Preventive Maintenance solutions for our Marine & Offshore venture got me thinking, how similar we use technology for Man as well as Machines. The end goal is Predictive & Preventive and for Human Body it is Personalized, Predictive & Preventive !

I am sure you would have seen cyborgs in the form of glucose monitoring patches. Step counters and HR are passé now. Metabolic health, Vo2 Max and Brain Simulators are the flavors of the season. Digital will find useful inroads in Health tech. While our social life will move into IRL, our health projects will be more and more digital. Finding alignments rather than finding hacks will be the health mantra for 2024.

I am very excited about my own journey in 2024. Consolidating all my ventures into one investment arm Anantata : with a core focus on building independent teams and developing more longevity focussed ventures by investing in Health, Safety & Sustainability projects. Anantata is a Sanskrit word for Infiniteness: The quality of being Infinite without bound or limit. I am building Anantata on this philosophy. I seek your active support and advice to navigate through in this journey.

I plan to write a book this year, along with my blogs which I wish to make it weekly / fortnightly. I know only 1- 2 % people read books and blogs. I wish that percentage increases and you encourage more authors to keep on sharing views that can shape a better future.

A late, but not too late Happy New Year to all of you.

Let’s reach out online to connect IRL