Something to Ponder Over in the New Year

While greeting you all on this New Year’s Day and wishing you all the best for this year and beyond, I will be sharing some issues pertaining to our current lives that should be of concern to all of us who care about a better future for mankind.

The one I am touching upon today is the increasing stranglehold of virtual reality on our lives. Virtual reality was very much there when the Covid Pandemic came along and pushed us deeper into its lap. With the fear of infection driving us indoors into self-isolation, it was online all the way from virtual teaching, interaction with loved ones to work from home. And, as I was reading in an The Times of India editorial today, immersive virtual reality is now making forays into our lives wherein just putting on a VRF headphone at home can take you to any corner of the world with whomsoever you wish to make it with. As if Zoom, Whatsapp, Facebook, Twitter and OTT platforms were not enough, now this has come to add fuel to the virtual fire. The result is already there for all of us to see. People who are seemingly so close to us on virtual platforms either avoid any real life interaction or,when forced into them, fumble, behave awkwardly and seem rather cold and distant in face to face situations . The more the virtual takes over our lives, the more our disconnect with the real world! As we are social beings, this has disturbing implications not only for our mental health but our social skills and graces as well as our social lives. As we immerse ourselves into our virtual cocoons, we run the risk of becoming extremely self-centred and delusional, forget all about forging solidarities with other like-minded people on important larger existential issues facing us! And I have not yet touched upon the colossal wastage of precious time which getting perennially engaged with these virtual platforms entails. And what about the horrid misinformation, titillation, frivolity, toxicity and worse circulating on these platforms with their world wide reach and influence and playing havoc not only with our individual lives but also with our social and civilisational fabric!

What is the way out now that the virtual reality is here to stay and is going to become bigger and bigger with time ? Are we just going to tamely succumb to this all-too-seductive virtual giant or we will proactively do something to leash this menacing tiger, all ready to devour us and our better sense? Are we going to make conscious digital detox a daily practice when we shun all online activity for a few hours and painstakingly reconnect and engage with real relations and the real world? Are we going to work out a fine balance between the virtual and the real? Are we going to be alert and discriminating while lapping up the unending digital content and separate, as they say, the virtual grain from the chaff? Are we going to just sit there passively and be swept away by the digital torrent or we are going to get up, do some physical work inside or outside the house, go out for a brisk walk or a run or to play a real game with our friends that makes us sweat and interact with our family, neighbours, friends and even strangers along the way as we used to do not very long ago?

These are the vital questions and our responses to them will determine the future course of our individual and social lives as well as our human civilisation. I think the matter deserves a serious thought on this very first day of the new year.

( I will take up some other vital issues with you all as days go by.)

Here is to a more enlightened and thoughtful new year!

Arun Bhagat

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