I am sure, by now, you know very well as to who Saty is. If not then surely you are going to find out now.

Yesterday, while having our usual conversation, Saty came up with one of the saddest news of his life. Yes! His internet connection had been marred by the thunder showers that had taken the city of Lucknow by surprise.

If you are wondering as to what’s the big deal in net not working, then you and me are on the same footing as this was precisely the question that I put to him. And as if I had opened the Pandora’s box, Saty indeed had his arsenal ready to be used on who else other than me:

“Dude! Net is life. I feel so constrained when I am not on the net. As if the life seems to have come to a standstill. How many friends would be waiting for me to log on and solve their problems which they might be having with their girlfriends and I have got so used to solving them that I can’t but let them suffer without me even trying to help them out.

I am unable even to think about something. Every thought of mine comes from the net. I want to kill the BSNL people for having done this to me. They have brought me immense mental trauma and suffering. I am even thinking about filing an RTI for the same. Do you think it’s a good idea? And by the way, how much would it cost?” —–Saty

“Well! The RTI won’t cost you much, but if you carry on like this, spending so much time on the computer, then for sure, you are going to have a hard time in the future.”—-Me

“Why are you saying this? What’s wrong in spending time on net and interacting with people?“—-Saty

“There is nothing wrong with interacting with people, but the question is for how long? To cite a few reasons as to why you shouldn’t do it: firstly, it is not worth wasting your time which can very well be used in constructive activities and even if you want to interact with your friends then also you don’t need to spend the whole day doing that; secondly, as many researchers have already found out, spending too much time on the net can not only make you addicted to the same but can also have drastic consequences for your health (e.g. eyes and neck); thirdly, you tend to start living in a virtual world of your own, away from the reality of life which is waiting to welcome you the moment you step out of your home. How can you be so naive about it?“—Me

“Yaar, it’s not that I don’t know about these things. It is just that I have got too much addicted to it, and the moment I get up in the morning, there is a strong urge of me logging on to what you call the virtual world. People tend to know me here and give me importance for my nature and for the human being I am, where as in your real world, where materialistic success is the only reason why people might want to meet you, I think I am better off not making myself exposed to the same.“—-Saty

“Hmm! I can understand what you mean. But for how long can you carry on doing like this? There will surely arrive some point when you will realize that enough is enough and that you need to get out of this addiction.“—-Me

“May be, you are right. But for now I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen in the future. I prefer living in the current as the future makes me very nervous.“—-Saty

These were his last words before our conversation came to an abrupt end and I thought it not wise to carry on with the discussion. Firstly, because I, myself, didn’t have any answer to the perplexing riddle of the real World about the way it operates and secondly, because by arguing I would have made Saty more sad, sheerly because he too is aware of the consequences of what he is doing.

Though, it didn’t stop me pondering about an issue that is becoming more relevant in present day context. I have met people who think about nothing else but logging on. Their craving is so visible that they, at times, tend to ignore their bosses and their real World friends in order to being able to spend some time on the net.

It has also become an escape for those who are not able to do what they would have wanted to do in their lives and thus have decided to abandon the real World altogether. It has also evolved as a refuge for single mothers, or widowers, who are not able to overcome their losses and the societal consequences resulting from the same.

Indeed, our thought processes are increasingly becoming dependant on the very revolution that Tim Berner Lee would have thought to bring in this world by inventing WWW.

I know that this phenomenon is not going to dissipate in the near future and is here to stay. I just hope that people can extract all the positives from this phenomenon and can prevent any harm from occuring to them, as you know that there are always two sides of a coin and one side is never right.

Source for Image: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2011/oct/18/battle-dot-eco, http://www.rediff.com/business/slide-show/slide-show-1-how-internet-is-creating-jobs-worldwide/20110527.htm, http://theinternet11.blogspot.in/