Monday 13 July 2009

Addicted!!

I remembered about 3 years back I entered a training and it requires the participants to switch off (yes, I do mean switch off) their mobile during the 5 days training. (Of course, re-switching on the phone during breaks and after the training hours are allowed). Yet, I found myself very reluctant to switch it off. I do not often get calls via my mobile. And I have taken my days off from work for the training (it doesn’t matter much if my colleagues unable to get me during the training.) I’ve plan my work well before taking the leaves. And there weren’t anything special happening during that period of time. Still I am reluctant to switch the mobile off. And I felt terribly uncomfortable to switch it off! And this exercise told me that I am addicted to mobile phones. I am a slave of the technology!

During that training, I found that many more people faced the same addiction as I am. Some are even addicted to the extend that they simply couldn’t switch it off at all. They quietly turn to silent and vibrate mode.

It is true that we cannot survive turning the phone off for few hours a day? Imagine the time we are without our mobile. Life goes on. Yeah, maybe once awhile when we need to make calls and the public phones were not working (due to vandalism. What a shame!)

I got my mobile during my college time. A pre-paid phone sponsored by my brother. I tagged my brother’s car to go home most of the days. Usually he made calls to me when he arrived outside my college gate or informed me about late pickups. And majority of the time, I didn’t pickup his call or I picked it up after few times of calls and worse, I forgot to turn it on or it is in silent mode. He used to scold me because I didn’t pickup the calls. And complains about wasting money to sponsor me the phone :P

I recalled one evening I sitting at the canteen area, reading on the book. Suddenly I heard my brother voice, angrily asking, “Where is your phone?” I looked at him, I knew must have missed his call again. Feeling guilty, I quickly dig into my bag and found the phone. I took a look on the phone. Yikes! 8 missed calls!! No wonder he is angry. He told me he started to make his first call ½ earlier. And I just didn’t realize it at all.

And I continue to miss out calls to my mobile even after I graduated from college and into working world. Now that I rarely left my mobile 3 metres away from me. Switching on my phone the first time I wake up. Plus, overly sensitive to mobile ringing tones. I categorized myself as the paranoid mobile user. Sometimes, when I go shopping (or where in places that is noisy) and I heard tones my mobile ringing. I would quickly press my hand to my bag where my mobile place, sensing whether any vibrate on my mobile. Checking and make sure I didn’t miss any calls. Oh no! I’m a slave of the technology which supposed to bring convenient to me. How can this happen?

Many people say that mobile phones are intruding into their privacy. People can find them anywhere, anytime as long as you hold you mobile, especially with the roaming and locater (like friend finder function) technology available cheaply. Yet, in what position we are to blame? We as the users are not responsible over the usage. We become overly addicted and relying on the technology. Yes, no more slaving to my mobile phone! Be a master of the technology. Be responsible and a smart user of the technology.

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