Be Digitally Sensitive while being Quarantined

We all are living in an era where technology is becoming our best friend. Take a small child of 2 years or an adult of 90, all are getting familiarized and fascinated with this term called technology. The Internet is one of the most important needs of the hour as it is not only keeping us all connected but also helping us in the enhancement of our skills.

The other day I was talking to one of my friends on this and we realized that our whole world has come into one device that we are using, be it be a laptop or a tablet or a mobile phone. Right from entertaining us through games that are again available for all the age groups to keeping us updated on the trending issues in and around the globe, This small magical box is doing it all for us. We are getting so much habituated to this idea of technology that we are even playing Games, Cooking, reading together and passing our time with friends across the borders through this. I remember sometimes back, social networking was a big boon in India with the arrival of Orkut which was eventually taken up by Facebook and we used it only to meet our friends and family and get updates on their lives once or twice a day but the scenario has again changed.

The biggest course of change that I am seeing today on the technology front is in this lockdown period. We are literally embracing technology by all means. One of the most important uses of technology has been in the field of knowledge sharing through videos on youtube to audios on podcasts to written papers on blogging websites to downloading electronic newspapers. I am getting videos of children having their regular school lectures on the internet through apps like Zoom, Telegram, etc. which is the next boon in the industry. The people who are working from home are having their pieces of training, presentations and meetings online via various corporate meeting platforms. (The download of Zoom has been increased to 1.5 lakh per day this month, ever since people have been quarantined). The people are playing various games like Sudoku, Ludo, Housie, PubG, Scrabble, etc. with their friends across the globe with so much willingness to keep them engaged and cut out this feeling of social distancing from their lives. So it is not only helping us engaged on the contentment and leisure side but also on the skills enhancement side. In this period of lockdown, people from all age groups are getting more and more accustomed to digitalization. Even those who were once digitally challenged are building up their skillsets in getting inclined with this wonderful medium of communication.

As Godfrey Reggio has rightly said

“It’s not that we use technology,

we live technology.”

As millions of people across India and around the world stay working from home, playing, socializing and getting entertained all through their home broadband internet, fears have spiked over a possible crash of the internet, overwhelmed by the surge in usage. We need to look out for the judicious use of data on the internet. There is so much internet traffic in the peak hours of the day so we should avoid downloading non-essential heavy files and movies at that time.

One most important area of worry in this lockdown is the heaviest usages on the internet by the increasingly popular streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. With their usage increasing as bored citizens log in for entertainment, as much as 20 percent was reported from top Indian metros, fears were expressed over the chance that networks might falter, unable to bear the load.

Well I am not denying the fact that this time of lockdown can be best dealt with the internet but we also need to put in our minds in using technology sensibly. One way of doing it is going back to basics which includes 

• Get yourself engaged in more board games, puzzles and deck of cards with family members. This will not only revive your olden days but will give you a better connection with your family to keep you going this quarantine. 
• Instead of reading online books, try reading some printed books as we used to do and those of you who keep watching news online, please switch on your televisions and watch it there. It will help big time in saving data.
• Video calling is indeed a good way to stay connected but keep them shorter and faster if it is only for entertainment purposes as it uses large bandwidth of data.
• We all receive so many videos and GIF’s in a single day many of which are of no use at all and sometimes they are even rumors which are not true at all so as a responsible data user we must not circulate these unrequired videos in our whatsapp or viber or We Chat messengers as downloading of these videos takes a huge amount of data every time.
• Shut down your data services while sleeping, eating your food, playing with your family or reading a book. This small step will be a big help to the data operators.
• It is well understood that these web series are new genre entertainment but try and take out some of your time in watching the old movie CDs that you still have in your collection as internet streaming takes a big toll on broadband services.
• There are so many apps that keep running in the background while not in use, so please make it a habit to close them as these apps also take a lot of data.
• Rethink of your hobbies back in your school time like singing, dancing, paintings, etc. and relish that once again. I am sure those hobbies were never internet friendly thus you won’t be needing any technology in trying your hands on it.

The point is to use the technology and Internet bandwidth so wisely that we can save energy and our money at the same time because ultimately if we are using more data than what our broadband plan allows so we end up putting more pressure on data providers and our pockets as we get to pay extra every time.

“The internet as energy is valuable, we need to distribute it wisely and sensitively”

Swati Jain

(Life Coach)