do we socialise more virtually rather than in reality.

While sitting at a waiting lounge at a client’s place alongside my colleague It suddenly dawned upon me there was hardly any communication happening between both of us as we both were busy playing with our handheld gadgets, sitting next to us were three executives of another organisation and they too were all busy with their gizmos least interacting with each other but very much active in a virtual world. This brings us to the point has gadgets really changed the way we think, act, interact, react, feel and do? Has it reduced interpersonal interactions?

It seems as if mobile phone owners are constantly chatting, texting, surfing the Web and playing games on their devices. I, wondered if the popularity of the hand held phones has caused people to become less social. After all, when people are busy with their handheld phones, they're not making small talk with the other people sitting next to them on the bus, train , public places etc.

People become reserved over time as they spend more hours plugged into their mobile phones. They forget, essentially, how to communicate with the strangers they encounter on the street. In the past, people would ask their bus or train mates how their days were going. Now, these same people will instead spend the entire commute reading sports scores or catching up on celebrity gossip with their smart phones browsers.

Until a few years ago we enjoyed our wait outside the client’s place, as along with our supervisors and peers we used to discuss about our industry, our organisation, the competition etc., which was enriching.  During the wait we were told how to make cold calling, managing  PR, ABC’s of maintaining relationship etc., and I, used to learn a lot when experiences were shared.

I, was taught the best way to spend time at a client’s waiting lounge is to pick up some books and read. Alas, today no books are kept at the waiting lounge, and in those places where it is still visible either a back dated issue are available or we ourselves are not interested in picking up the books. Today, however with the arrival of high end phones we are either busy sending mails or majority of our time is spent on social networking, we pretend to be very busy and display scant respect to others by continuously staring at the gadgets expecting a message to arrive every minute.

We text while we walk, drive, eat, there has been news that people have become Insomniac and some has developed the habit of texting even during their sleep. These days phones dominates our lives. Texting is also changing the importance of grammar and right spelling, causing many problems because people simply do not know how to write formally and accurately. IT is not a surprise when texting causes many problems both physically and mentally. 

We text even when the person we are contacting lives down the road or is at a longer distance,Grammar, spelling, syntax, abbreviation do not matter any more, which is why texting is largely popular with younger generation. Many people have expressed their concerns about the non-existence of grammar it seemed to have in our society in the present and text messaging is not helping to change the trend.

Are we then getting evolved negatively - A few years ago, people used to either meet for coffee stop by one's house or pick up the phone and call, today many people are more apt to learn or receive the latest news about one another through Facebook rather than from a personal inform. How many people learn about the happenings of family and friends online? even of those who live nearby? 

It is resulting in decreased face to face interaction, less phone calls, less one to one interaction (earlier during birthday's or marriage anniversary, we used to visit our dear and near ones, exchange greeting during festivals and share joy and happiness, but it is just a mere formality of sending a text message and greeting them). This significantly impacts interpersonal realtionship. Let's live out of this caged life and enjoy life to the fullest. Recently watched a marathi movie Ek Unaad Divaas, it teaches us how to enjoy life by living one day in a different way.