Is Smart making us dumb?

Being a resident of Bengaluru, also called garden city, which is located in the southern part of India, most of my  Family and friends residing in different parts of the world, physical distance doesn’t seem to separate us today because of modern technology that always keeps us connected with our near & dear ones at touch of a button. When the entire world is confined to their homes due to current lockdown, still we are virtually connected seamlessly to our workplaces using modern communication tools without major disruption to our daily routines. Technology has indeed made this colossal world seem so small, by breaking the bonds of distance and time, and thereby enabling us to communicate from one part to another in a trice.
I feel lucky to be born in this smart-tech era which our ancestors were not privileged. Our daily lives have become so indispensably interwoven with technology, which has impacted our lives in every aspect positively or sometimes otherwise. Thanks to satellite navigation we can travel to any nook and corner of the world, without human assistance, all we need is a smartphone with an internet connection.
When I equate our present lifestyle that is enabled by different technologies with our ancestors, who with aid of whatever primitive technology existed in that era, sailed rough seas across continents to discover newer places and establish various cultures which later evolved as nations, present day technology has evolved with various facets that has integrated the world into a single marketplace.
 I grew up in Aurangabad, a city situated in central India which is far off from my native place Kanyakumari, located in the southernmost part of the country. During my childhood days communication between my grandparents and our family was mostly through inland letters. As I can clearly recollect, whenever my father used to write a letter to my grandmother, I would always pen down few words for her and patiently await her response. There was an eager expectation and joy in waiting for the reply. Even though writing a physical letter takes more time and effort than simply typing out a quick email., it adds heft to our words and shows the reader of the letter that during the entire time we spent writing and sending the letter we were thinking of them.
I am talking about a bygone era, where we didn’t have the privilege to access the technology that we have today. But that bygone era has inculcated patience and tolerance which the present generation seems to be lacking because so many things are readily available at their disposal without the need to wait, think and then decide, shaping their overall persona which has ripple effects on the overall society as well.
Being an academician, I come across many young minds every day, who are unaware of yesteryear’s lifestyle and so used to modern technology, that ‘being patient’ is a lost word in their dictionary. Living in this era of cutting-edge technology, “Instant’ coffee and ‘instant’ food, the need to be patient has lost its sheen and considered sluggish. Food being delivered to home at few clicks away - is it really a blessing or disguise is another debatable topic . Today’s modern technology has unconsciously ridiculed the need to being patient, given multiple options from food to fashion readily available at our disposal and changed our outlook and conceptions from yesteryear's on various aspects of daily lives.
Until mid-90’s we had the only option of using the landline phone connection and many of us during that time remembered multiple contact numbers of our family and friends, but with advent of mobile phones where we have the option of storing contact details, our ability to remember has come down drastically. During our days we were content to walk for a distance or even take bicycle rides, for shopping, movie or a park, but today’s cutting-edge technology has enabled us to book a taxi from the comfort of our homes that has left us languid.
It is considered a privilege to leave family and go far-off places to work or study and settle, many with the preconceived notion that technology will always keep them virtually connected. But is that true?  It has left a void in physical presence resulting in broken relationships and many living in isolation without the physical human connect which itself has disturbing social effects. Parents could not spend adequate time with their children due to compelling reasons of adapting to modern work culture and children at home often seen to being glued to mobiles and computer screens which directly affects their behavioral pattern with the content they watch, which will certainly have an impact on the overall society as well.
Smartphone has taken up a steadfast position in our private and social lives and has almost become indispensable to live without. Societies are becoming virtual without being physically connected with the humane aspect in their lives by becoming more dependent using their devices to communicate in various platforms, thereby leading to reduced human to human interaction, personal touch and care, reduced emotional quotient, disturbed sleep are a few to name.
 Are we heading in the right direction?  Seems like these smart devices have succeeded in making us naiver. We’ve been able to connect the entire world in touch of a button, but have trouble connecting to our neighbors next door. We are able to build taller buildings, bigger houses, have more degrees and knowledge, more advancement in field of medicine and patient care, but in the process, we have become impatient, intolerant, and some time inhumane as well .We are able to do great things technologically but not humanly.
We need to reconsider and strategize the use of technology wherever its applied in our daily lives and remind ourselves that technology was created for our well-being and we should not inadvertently become a slave of it. Yes! We do have access to smart technology, but we also have to be smarter enough to learn on how to use it effectively for the betterment of mankind.