Mobile phone is one of the fastest growing technologies. We see new apps with better facilities every fortnight if not daily. It is useful and helpful for many reasons. With this invention we can have so many things in our pocket: the whole world, the entire Bible, Prayer Books, Dictionary, Bank Account, Internet connection, etc. Many of the helpful things and tools are compact in the handset we use. In the 101 Most Useful Things, mobile phone is regarded as the Uno Numero Invention of the 21st century.
At the same time, there are areas we may need to use prudence with this appliance. Mobile Phone has almost taken the place of God in the lives of many people as the Alpha and Omega. It is slowly but systematically killing grammatical and correct spellings in the form of SMS – Short Message Services and other messaging facilities. According to the studies made, attention span is shortened by from 13 second in 2000 to 8 second in 2013 in the constant mobile phone users.Many brilliant students have replaced their studies this gadget. Late sleep has become the pattern of sleep in many students as they keep chatting past midnight, depriving the REM sleep. It is said that the lack of REM sleeps affects memory besides putting one’s health at risk. The lack of sleep affects students, bringing down the rank drastically. This is because a student cannot keep the mind active in the classes the next day if s/he kept chatting under the blankets throughout the night. Besides affecting one’s studies, Medical researchers also have found that microwave radiation of the type emitted by mobile phones causes eye tissue to “bubble” – a precursor to the formation of cataracts – and can also interfere with the ability to focus and many other sicknesses. Professor Levi Schächter who led the team to study, warned the users saying, “Our results show that microwaves can cause irreparable damage in the human body.” Like Professor Levi, many who did research on mobile usage, described about it the usage of Smartphone as ‘health destroyer’ ‘time killer’, ‘goal destroyer, ‘money consumer’, etc. Yet it has become a necessity in our lives and many of us have Nomophobia” or “no-mobile-phone phobia”. But if we do not take control of this, it will take control of us soon.
Looking at the recent happenings in Paris, a thought flip through my mind, our people need to learn a lot from them about the ways of using the social net-workings. They respected the dead bodies and so hardly showed any bloody images of those who die in the unfortunate incident. Though they were shocked, sad, yet they hardly showed any people wailing, blaming each other, politicizing. What they circulated were the candle lights, flowers, wreaths, and people kneeling in prayer but not the horrific images. None of us will be happy to expose the blood stained images of our near and dear ones for everyone to see. Let us remember the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Lk. 6:31).
Our society too has witnessed some very ugly incidents and later regretted for wild circulations of such scenes. Many people blamed the social media for aggravating the incidents, i.e. due to flooding with such unwanted images. Therefore, we need to ask ourselves a few questions before posting or forwarding the images. Is this image going to profit him/her?” What is s/he going to learn from this picture and become a better person? If it won’t, we need to learn to control from posting the horrific and bloody images in the social media.
The ethics of social media is careful in posting the violent scenes. It is because seeing over and over again; the people who watch absorb those images and styles. If we want our society to be a peaceful society, we need abstain from adding manure to our sub-conscious mind with such horrific images.
Here, it may be good to note for the generous parents. Do you know the legal age for these facilities in the smart phones? 13 years is legal age for a person to use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr, Reddit, Snapchat and Secret. Legal age for a person to use WhatsApp is 16 years of age. This legal age is set for some benefit of the children. But many parents themselves go against these rules and generously give all these gadgets to the children and later request the teachers and pastors saying, “Please tell him/her a little, s/he does not listen to me”. If parents can learn when to say, “No” to the children instead of pampering, they can avoid facing such helpless situation later. One may live in an IT-generation and use all the latest electronic devices but if one does not know the pros and cons, it won’t make a person upto-date by using it. Let us learn to use these devices to help us and to not harm us.
Fr. George Rino
Cathedral Church, Kohima
