Though it is true that we are often stressed by the information overload; the internet has also given us the technology tools to filter and selectively absorb what we want. I think this makes a significant change in the way we view and approach the world. While the emergence of technology, social networking, online news and sharing methods has made it easier for news to get popular, the downside is that they give the user the power to live in a restricted world of likable realities. This restricted world is created by selective reading of what one loves to think is happening around them.
One positive aspect of the now fast fading world of daily news paper is that we were delivered the news at our door steps and by the end of the day we would have covered a whole set of information that includes fun, facts, politics, opinions and more. There was also time spend on asking questions and framing opinions and discussing among people. But now we could spend a whole day on social media or news sites only reading what is popular and what is being shared by our immediate connections and finish the day with absolutely no idea of how the world turned that day. We can also set alerts to show and hide what we want on our pages. Though internet allows us to access information faster than before, what use is it if we deliberately filter what we want to know?
This puts a fundamental responsibility on the reader to look for news that matters and not get opinionated by media conspiracies and get brain starved in information filters that we set to avoid spam and uninvited online contacts. Though we all like a paradise on earth we also know that the situation is far from that and it becomes our responsibility to get to the daily news that will not easily allow us to start our day, work, or get to sleep.
The anguish of the beaten innocence across the world should haunt us every passing minute. We should be aware when compassion is crucified on the cross made of greed, religion and ignorance. We should be aware that when we drop our kid at the day care, childhoods are daily pushed into trenches through which the sins of the world flow and their cries are often silenced by the so called overgrown minds. If someone is crying for help, we should hear it and listen to it so that we in our ignorance don’t roar with laughter at the first dirty joke that comes our way.
Technology and internet should be used to reach out and see what is happening and not to choose the trivial over the most needed. We can all understand the need for motivation and good words, but it should not be to hide the realities and plight of fellow human beings so we could laugh and enjoy and believe that everything is as usual. By shutting the eyes and ears we don’t automatically get transported to a world of love, laughter and joy; we should look at the world and see that life for many get pushed into the dark daily. We might not make a difference always, every time for everything we see or hear, but acknowledging what is happening, shedding a tear, talking, writing, telling NO loudly so deafened ears can hear, raising a finger, tweeting, commenting, shouting, all makes a difference; just let us not be indifferent.
“What can we do?” is not a question the majority asks to address a problem but a blanket statement many use to pull over their head when they sleep tight at night. We need to get up at night, sweating, waking up to nightmares and remembering that in some part of the world people are waking up to darkness even on a bright sunny day. Our insignificant sixty or seventy or ninety years of active life span is worth much more than just living, it is all about feeling, acknowledging and responding.
Someone asked me why I am negative, and I think this is my way of being positive; understanding and acknowledging that we have a problem is the first positive step we can take. Lately every day when I wake up I am troubled by the question as to what right do I have to be more fortunate (irrespective of the hundred things I frown about) than someone else and did I truly earn it and surprisingly I continue my day every day without a proper answer
Categories: Articles, Opinions, Personal, Responsibility, Society
Vinod Narayan 
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