Phone time

In an essay competition in a Thimphu school a young child wrote that he wished he was a phone so that his parents would spend more time with him. There are similar feelings being voiced out in different ways by young children who are not even in their teens.

In Bhutan, first it was the TV, then it was laptop and now it seems the smart phone has conquered them all as people are bent over their phones be it in public places, office, meetings and sadly even at home.

The scary thing is not just the amount of time people spend on their phones but the amount of emotional and financial investment made in the social media world.

Social media is a useful tool if used in the right manner like promoting one’s business or reaching out to people on a host of issues. However, like any other thing its excessive use brings a host of problems.

One of the most sad of these problems are that family members, even while in the same room, are more connected and involved with people and events on different continents.

Young children have to compete with the phones of their parents and also vice versa as children get older.

When one travels to developed countries it is almost shocking to see how pretty much everyone on a train are engrossed on their phone. Bhutan is not yet there but we will soon be.

Studies have shown that a person who spends more time on the social media is less happy then ones who don’t spend as much time.

Apart from ruining family time social media also affects the health of its users who would rather sit slumped on a couch than take that walk or do other healthier things.

It is time that we start balancing and limiting our social media time before the cost is too high, both for the family and one’s own mental and physical health.

“Distracted from distraction by distraction” 

T.S. Eliot