Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
About 10 years ago when I was working in India, we used to get email about 3 times a day, we could hear the computer connect and we all would wait to see whose inbox would fill up. And then, we used to have about an hour of internet time every week. That was something everyone used to look forward to. I managed to chat with my brother who was then studying in UIUC. It was on short cool! At that time I thought , this is great! I can get in touch and keep in touch with everyone. To cut it short I came to the US, I found it amazing that I could look up anything, get directions to any place, get bus routes , times etc. It was wonderful. Then again the scene a few years ago, lots of emailing and as far as I remember, people I used to email used to email back, so it was like a give and take and was good. There was a family emailing list setup and it seemed all enthusiastic to write current news and things going on in our lives, seemed like oh, we are so much in contact, this is good. Well, of late [maybe more than a year], people seem to have lost interest in keeping in touch I guess, the world definitely has changed, importance to things have shifted. Not replying or not responding to emails doesn’t seem like a big thing anymore. But I just wonder, it isn’t that no one logs in or it isn’t that an average person doesn’t spend atleast half an hour on the computer everyday, but why has the enthusiasm that seemed to be there about 10 years ago declined? Personally mine hasn’t faded I still feel as excited as I was before about being ‘connected’ to the world through the internet. Maybe it is human tendency to be that way? Maybe humans really don’t yearn to be too close to friends or relatives? I can remember my grandfather sending inland letters by post and we used to get one every month I think, I guess those were days people were more in contact. I don’t believe in phones as much as I do in emails. I still find it more convenient, with phones you never know what every person is upto, its like an interruption of what you are doing when someone calls, with emails you can carry on your daily life and set away a chunk of your time to keep in touch or get up to date.
Things in the world change in so many ways, yet some things remain the same and one of them is human behaviour.
Tags: Email, India, Internet | Posted in Personal | No Comments »
Anyway I am here now saying good morning to those who read it here in US CST. It is a beautiful morning. A tiny bit sad because my 8 yr old who was stung by a wasp still has a big swelling on her leg and foot, and unable to wear her shoes. My little one is now busy using a dry erase to color her leg and some post-its that she has taken from my office drawer. My plans are to go and get some order into my vegetable garden and to pick some okra before they get too mature to eat! Read somewhere that you can make paper but people who know the number of things I intend to do would say “yah right, paper from okra!!!”