What plans do you have in place if phones and the internet go away tomorrow?
Hello everyone, This week I have an interesting and hypothetical situation that i want to discuss with you all. I said hypothetical because I do not see this happening given the pace at which technology has taken over our lives but I thought it is interesting to give it a thought and ponder upon.
Last Sunday I was hanging out with my friend in a coffee shop. Inbetween our chit chat he asked — “What if Phones and the Internet go away Tomorrow, how will the world look like? how do things change and how will people face it?”
He is good at bringing such conversations to challenge our beliefs.
I stayed silent for a moment as I could not imagine a world without phones and the Internet. Then I asked him why will the internet or phone go away when they are serving us greatly?
He said, just imagine it's gone and tell me how everything changes and how will people face it?
Many thoughts rushed into my mind. ‘We would go back by decades if this happens’, ‘How will I call my friends and chat with them in the middle of the night?’, ‘Should I wait in a long queue at the bank by taking a day off to know my account balance?’ and so on.
After few seconds, I told him “If it’s gone, I will be the happiest person because I will be spared of seeing his good morning messages with motivational quotes daily in WhatsApp group and the pics that our common friend posts daily while eating pani prui at their street corner”.
I told him, “you guys are the reason for the internet and phones to be gone from our lives”.
He got angry but calmed down and said it’s not easy to imagine they are gone. But when they are gone, coping up is not easy.
No doubt people will have meaningful conversations at their dining table and meet each other in-person with their neighbors to have long conversations. Kids will play in the open with glee and friendships/relationships will have a longer bonding.
He continued,
All these said, can you imaging how transactions get affected? All of us depend on them in one way or the other to complete our daily tasks and communicate easily, to find information to our queries on the go and for entertainment.
The Internet has facilitated businesses to scale immensely and cater to a larger population in a short time. It has created convenience in interactions and has reduced the time we spend on shopping, bills, and other errands so we get quality time to focus on other important activities. Everyone has to stand in long queues to get those services that were available online. People might get more frustrated and tired.
We have got an addiction of sorts to the internet and phones, Haven’t we? he asked.
I told, “we are in a phase where both internet and phones are interdependent on each other to a large extent. Without the internet, smartphones will be called dumb-phones and they will command very little usage and respect in society.” No one cares about them and insure them for theft or damage.
I continued, it might even bring down the economy because a lot of companies are selling products online and making profits. For some companies, their online profits are more than their offline profits and some of them thrive only on online business without a physical presence.
People are shopping at the convenience of their home and ordering food at home after a long day at work. How do we do without such comfort that we got used to? It takes huge efforts to get out of this comfort zone and it will be frustrating.
He nodded and started talking about the rural population.
He said rural people do not have the same access to the internet and phones as we do but are living happily.
I do wish that the Internet and phones are not gone from our lives as we wanted to imagine, it should enable the rural population to lead a comfortable life by making their work easy like online banking access, learning on the go to switching their water pump at their fields at the click of a button on an App.
I totally agree with you, I said. Even I do not want to imagine they are gone, let us use them responsibly.
We then ordered another cup of hot coffee and munched on pakodas before leaving for the day.
Hope you enjoyed reading the conversation.
Share your thoughts on what you plan to do if phones and the internet are no longer available tomorrow?
How does it affect you? will it bother you at all?
