Day 42 : Digital Distancing

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” — Albert Einstein

It’s been 15 days since I last wrote and it wasn’t because I was disconnected or missed the writing flow. There was this sudden rush of Digital Life: All things that we normally do through the day is now digital, like work, entertainment, self-learning, self-development, digital drinking with buddies, catching up with long lost friends (ya it took a COVID- 19 to see them after 2 decades). Well , thankfully I still do my workouts in a real environment and not computer simulated games or else that would have been a disaster.

Now, I AM a pro technology guy, I do believe it should make our life simpler. But BC (Before COVID), we were actually accelerating towards an exponential life. Ordering everything online; right from food to grocery to everything else on Amazon. From sending selfies to food pictures on social network and making new friends of common interests, we now even have apps that turn on air conditioners and lights for us while we are on our way home and refrigerators that will directly place an order for us when the stock is empty! E-sports is spending more money than real time sports, in fact leading the largest prize pools for competitive gaming is DOTA 2, which has handed out an overall figure of more than $219 million in tournament money! Think about it, for a good percentage of people, one of every 2 minutes spent online is on “leisure activities”, such as viewing videos, entertainment/music, and games. One of every 5 minutes spent online is on social media. An average person spends almost 3 hours per day on a smartphone- in a pre covid era.

Back to IC (In COVID -19 time zone) we took a rocket and accelerated ourselves into this digital world, our offices went digital, we are lapping up every digital strategy and webinar that is available online to create our own personal brands, we are meeting more friends than before, digitally. We seem to have increased our digital acceleration speed to more than what we are comfortable with.

But wait; doesn’t life happen when you look up and around you, not on screens? Before we join the 5G mobile Internet connectivity and accelerate faster, could we pause for some time? Could we turn off our cell phones, our computer and our digital life, forget our daily routines to think and ask ourselves these two questions?

Who am I?

What makes me happy?

Why are these questions important you may ask? As we take the next leap in technology, it is the machine and the AI that will determine who we are and what makes us happy.

Google will suggest what you should do while you are searching, Netflix will tell you what your preferences are (they have a larger database than our infinitely small human memory). We already are Block Chained (whoever suffixed it with a chain, what an irony, how did we miss that subtle warning?) to Digital Life. Again, I am not anti-technology. Block chain is the future, it is fast, connected, and most importantly convenient. That’s what we seek when we move into this Hyper-living; technology offers all of it and more. All we need to do is be more mindful of technology.

Technology shouldn’t make real experiences obsolete, should it? Can drinking with buddies ever be the same without bear hugging while beer chugging with them or will playing football on ground be replaced by e-sports FIFA on TV? Can sharing pics on food groups online replace the joy of making a meal and sharing with friends on that group? I feel this 40-60-day lockdown has made us value and choose what aspect of our life should be digital rather than aimlessly accelerate towards a Hyper-life.

Einstein with his quote (well, as with most quotes, there is still a debate whether it is his!) was saying that it is desirable to keep even complex things as simple as they can be, without losing their essence.

Digital Minimalism or Mindfulness in Digital Life is about being more intentional with use of technology. Let us try practicing Digital Distancing once in a while, giving those eyes, fingers and minding some rest as we look forward to the opening up of our non-digital life.

Time and space disappear together with things, well Internet of Things (IoT) in this case :)