Travel, food & life....as it happens

Friday, August 19, 2011

Disconnected in the times of 3G

What is that sinking feeling called when you feel inferior not for the lack of anything but when you feel that instead of friends meeting after a long time, a few gadgets are getting together and discussing their tech specs?

That is how I felt last evening.

I didn't meet people. I met an ipad, a Dell Streak, a Kindle and a Samsung Galaxy. I stands for a Nokia E63 here.

How are you? How is your wife? How are the children? Tell me about your new job? This is what I would have wanted to ask. Instead, the conversations revolved mostly around what each gadget can or cannot do.

Aren't these machines meant to connect us more?
Why did I feel so disconnected?

Why do I have to justify why I went for a Samsung Netbook instead of a tab when they cost almost the same? How should it matter if one person knows how to convert a .mobi file into a pdf? Why is it so difficult to fathom that I don't want to use pushmail even if my phone supports it? How it cost 100 USD just for the ipad cover etc etc!!! I undersatand one must know about these things and be technologically updated. In fact I am thankful to them for introducing me to things I din't know. But to just go on and on about it....it drained me of any will to talk further.

When I sit with Iru or Anagha, I don't remember me bragging about how the complex video editing softwares work or them bragging about their imacs. We talk about us. Our families. What drives us at work. What pulls us back. Our travels. Movies. Food. Books. So much to share and enrich.

I felt very out of place yesterday. Whatever happened to being happy for the other person just coz you feel happy that your friend has purchased a new gadget and not because how you have a better one?


Maybe things would have been different if I had mentioned that I am planning to buy a 12 core Mac Pro soon. But I was not me yesterday. I was a mere Nokia E 63 without 3G who couldn't even open the GPS map that one of the friends had sent as the pickup location.

7 comments:

  1. I don't know whether it's making any sense here...but I am just sick of these gadgets...they are so inhuman !

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  2. I like the gadgets but this constant need of people always wanting to be connected is driving me crazy....imagine bathroom la zaatana phones gheun zaayache aat madhe....

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  3. I so agree with you.....
    and LOL at your comment too Vandana:)
    priyanka

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  4. seriously Priyanka,,,things have started annoying me now...I have such a nice house which I did up with so much care but I hardly sit there chatting with my husband....we are either watching TV or on phones or on the net....I just want to get away and not have these things around me. I want to be totally incommunicable for a month!!!

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  5. U r absolutely right... but really can't help. Take me for instance... few years back I used to drool over kingfisher-models and see today... I dote on iPod touch.... realy can't help :D

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  6. Today it becomes easy to forget that humans made and defined gadgets and not vice versa.
    Great post.

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