"Time is the ultimate independent variable. Everything we see, including ourselves are just functions of it"
- Goutham Sharma
Thursday, January 12, 2017
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Information deluge
Hello!
Happy new year!(If you didn't think it's too late to wish now). I have lot of hopes from this year. I posted just five times last year and it may be worse this time. Reason being this year is crucial for me (B.tech final year = final project + placements + higher studies) and I will not have time to think about stuff to be written here. You can conclude that sporadic postings here will be a result of deep thought or frustration.
I recently came across this strange case in newspaper where a person got addicted to Wikipedia and spent weeks just reading while ignoring basic needs. He was diagnosed with serious compulsion disorder. It was reported that he didn't step out of his home for a long time and had social anxiety issues.
I had issues similar to the above with online forum Quora, which was meant to be a great Q/A resource but disturbing and frivolous stuff started getting into the feed like these:
Happy new year!(If you didn't think it's too late to wish now). I have lot of hopes from this year. I posted just five times last year and it may be worse this time. Reason being this year is crucial for me (B.tech final year = final project + placements + higher studies) and I will not have time to think about stuff to be written here. You can conclude that sporadic postings here will be a result of deep thought or frustration.
I recently came across this strange case in newspaper where a person got addicted to Wikipedia and spent weeks just reading while ignoring basic needs. He was diagnosed with serious compulsion disorder. It was reported that he didn't step out of his home for a long time and had social anxiety issues.
I had issues similar to the above with online forum Quora, which was meant to be a great Q/A resource but disturbing and frivolous stuff started getting into the feed like these:
- What are some great random facts?
- What are some amazing pictures?
- What are some awesome movie facts and details?
- What are some interesting campus recruitment stories?
- What are the most amazing facts about "xxxxxxxx"?
- What is it that we Indians do wrong collectively?
- What is sad about yourself?
All these were entered here as I see my feed in tab next to the blog editor. Answers for these questions have 10k-20k upvotes. Worst thing is the feed in this forum does not end as you scroll downwards (Just like any social networking site). You keep reading all the nonsense till your mind gets jammed. I prefer a clean mind to a cluttered one. I am starting to doubt if it is necessary to read newspaper every morning. All extra information that gets poured into the mind everyday is simply not worth it. I wonder how people could keep scrolling down their Facebook feed endlessly to 'keep up' with what's happening. Survival is the most basic instinct of man and he need not waste time in knowing stuff which does not serve this.
Back when I was in my secondary school, Facebook entered Indian cyberspace and we adolescents were excited to be always connected. It felt great chatting with a cousin staying abroad. It felt good when my posted picture got 10 likes. Things aren't the same now. This 'keeping up' turned into an obsession when people took 'Facebook friends' seriously. Real relations are just one thing: 'friend' or 'not a friend'. A guy is considered friend of another when his request for 'friendship' got accepted. This is not a marriage proposal! This is about feeling there's something common in between.
Gone are the days when we played, sang and danced. Compulsion to check and reply to a WhatsApp text message now predominates curiosity to converse with a stranger. This was well explained in The Hindu open page article well: The 'death' of conversation. We are living in age of information. Big data and data science are today's buzzwords. News got more disturbing as 2016 passed. Unrest and chaos were two words which can describe my state of mind after I bought my first smartphone (somewhere in July). I was not used to high inflow of data ever before and it made me feel that this world is much more complex than I assumed. Being intimidated is the worst feeling, believe me.
Information is power. But our control and perception about it is what that shapes us. I prefer texting only vital info over WhatsApp. It helps me save the thrill of meeting someone again after long time.
Goutham
Back when I was in my secondary school, Facebook entered Indian cyberspace and we adolescents were excited to be always connected. It felt great chatting with a cousin staying abroad. It felt good when my posted picture got 10 likes. Things aren't the same now. This 'keeping up' turned into an obsession when people took 'Facebook friends' seriously. Real relations are just one thing: 'friend' or 'not a friend'. A guy is considered friend of another when his request for 'friendship' got accepted. This is not a marriage proposal! This is about feeling there's something common in between.
Gone are the days when we played, sang and danced. Compulsion to check and reply to a WhatsApp text message now predominates curiosity to converse with a stranger. This was well explained in The Hindu open page article well: The 'death' of conversation. We are living in age of information. Big data and data science are today's buzzwords. News got more disturbing as 2016 passed. Unrest and chaos were two words which can describe my state of mind after I bought my first smartphone (somewhere in July). I was not used to high inflow of data ever before and it made me feel that this world is much more complex than I assumed. Being intimidated is the worst feeling, believe me.
Information is power. But our control and perception about it is what that shapes us. I prefer texting only vital info over WhatsApp. It helps me save the thrill of meeting someone again after long time.
Goutham
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