“You seem to be so busy yet you are so quiet!” I asked my friend as I called him on his landline.
“I’m messaging you, with my cell phone!” he said, sounding exasperated.
“What?” I shouted, “You don’t have to text me, I’m talking to you!”
“But I find it easier to text!” he said on the phone, then went quiet. I heard the loud ping on my cell phone and realized he had actually messaged me.
I also heard him hanging up. He’d even forgotten to say bye.
And that’s the state of the world today. As I pass hoardings all over the city I see a price war taking place between different mobile phone companies. “Chat free!”, says one. “Just chat, just chat, just chat”, say a thousand other boards and banners fixed all across every bus stop and store, all over town, country and the whole world.
“Talk is out, chat is in!”
I know friends of mine working for multinationals and other corporate firms, who sitting in little cubicles, with half a wall of plywood between them, typing messages to one another, instead of pushing back their chair and conversing.
You walk into these offices and find their fingers set over cell phone. You think they are busy at work, till you see a smile, or hear a laugh… and you know a word, a letter, a sentence, not something you said, has brought out a laugh! I know that soon, the laugh from their throat, or smile on their face will be converted into an expression, a smiley, an emoji on their phone monitors.
“Laughter and tears, you have been replaced by symbols!” I shout, but no one hears me.
“It’s the next stage in evolution”, said a doctor to me. “Just as man evolved away from his tail, when he stopped swinging from trees, so will we evolve out of voice!”
“What about singing? I asked my doctor friend, as he switched on his phone and I listened to some garish sounds coming from it, “That’s the music of today!” he said, “maybe silence is better huh Bob?”
“What did you say?” I asked.
“WordsI” he said, “Looks like you’ve forgotten how to use your ears!” and we both burst into laughter.
“Texting”, said my doctor friend, “is becoming more addictive than talking, and there are less hassles involved”.
“Hassles?” I asked.
“Yes,” said my friend, “imagine in talking you’ve got to meet physically at a place and be aware of the other person’s body language. No such problems when you chat. You are free!”
“Free?” I asked.
“Yes, free to type something and to mean something else. Chat is a true actor acting a role on stage, your phone screen!”
Chat is an act: No gestures. No voice. Just a performance of words on your phone which is actually meant for speaking!
A silent world with busy fingers is happening..!
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