Tuesday, April 14, 2015

The Genie-Us

"Only few were smart before the smart phones,just like few were cooks till Maggi came along."
The quest for convenience has perpetuated in advancements leaving the previous processes vestigial. Resistance has come often from reluctance to change, the intimidation of its rapidity conferring the sore thumbs with a 'purist' tag for consolation.  
Take for instance the dynamism in the evolution of cricket over the years, from 90 overs it has capsulized to 20 overs.The purists who had expressed dissent during the transitional phase are found perched in the confines of the commentary box ,meekly overseeing the proceedings of the same things they once resisted.
Earlier one had to be an aficionado to know about a movie's facts and trivia. But now all you have to do is look up the movie on Google and voila, you have everything about it including marital status of siblings of the principal cast along with pirated links to the movie itself.A person's character was judged by the company he kept till a time his search history became accessible. 

We used to lie effectively,be creative when it came to making alibis for our escapades.But with the arrival of "Alt Tabs" and "incognito modes" the chivalry just became impotent.

Like in the case of every invention, this too does have its pros and cons, patrons and naysayers. Take for instance travel as a hobby,people had to travel far & wide to talk about a certain destination at length before Google. Now all one has to do is look up a destination and it vomits images,videos,travel blogs and itinerary suggestions .Being well informed has metamorphosed from keeping ear to the ground to fingers on the keyboard.
During my dad's time the effort that one took in a certain direction entailing time & money among other resources, defined his passion. These days it's come down to internet speed and Mb spent to be a jack of all trades.The scope for bluffing is so high that it is hard to figure what a person's core competence is just by his authoritative opinions on a subject matter.

Google's not only played a big hand in shrinking the radius of the earth,but also in down-scaling utilisation of vital resources like paper & petrol considerably by overhauling existing processes to achieve similar results in an obscenely simpler manner.From a time when fidelity was tangible, we have come to embrace an era with its integrity founded on virtual existence.
But to me the best thing that has happened is the man hours chiseled of  trivial pursuits by the press of a button. There's more time to live life than before, thanks to Google. But the irony can't be ignored that the life expectancy has gone southwards in the same era.

As much as the world has become a more accessible place with the mouse turning from a rodent to a navigator, the growing crevice on the human spirit can't be ignored entirely.
With every pursuit in the direction of civic perfection, the primal facets of our tribe seems to be receding to an erstwhile status like the forehead of a fast balding man.

The path of evolution is regulated by the spirit of one-upmanship with cannibalistic tendencies to a previous trend.The one's embracing it move forwards as cogs in a wheel, the sentimental ones stagnate to sing posthumous laurels.
All that said there is no denying the good Google has done, for it is an indiscriminate genie.The blame for the manifestations must lie entirely with Aladdin.

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