“Mom, how many more do you plan to accumulate? Do you think it is manageable to have so many hard copies? It is so bulky and cumbersome task, better to shift to digital.”, my thought train around the newly arranged bookshelf was obstructed by these words. He was exasperated to see that I can amass so many books. He further pointed that the digital mode of reading has advantages of being handy, cost efficiency and it saves the space in house for something better. I could not argue enough with him and make him understand my choice of a hard copy of book in comparison of the more flexible and convenient soft copy. I have failed in my previous attempts with many other adult observers. So, as such my adventures with book accumulation are a continuous part of my life, however the above episode somehow made me to take a note of the way digitization has changed our reactions, choices and perception towards storage and maintenance.
Mechanization followed by digitization has added a lot of plus to our lives. It helps to improve the speed and efficiency and reduces the overheads of size, storage and loss due to wear and tear. It has simplified our approach towards managing and storing the data and hence saves us lot of regular maintenance overheads. This saves a lot of money and time for us. However, irony is that the nature of money as well as time both is very flowing. They find their own ways of movement. The saved time and money get channelized in some other ways. The actual benefit of the savings can be identified by the quality of these channels. If the saved time and money gets diverted towards the ways that lead to stagnant and static lifestyle for example, it could not be a good bargain.
Digital methods and devices have enough positives to keep us attached, however their underlying negatives in terms of health hazards and over exposure are also significant. Excess exposure of the gadgets to kids adds a lot of strain on their senses from young age.
As the speed and multiplicate progression is bonus of digitization, these two aspects take center stage of all decisions. While matching up with the expectations of speed, quality takes the backseat. There is abundance of everything sans quality. However, what stays is usually the quality and eminence, as said by Newton Howard
“People forget how fast you did a job, but they remember how well you did it”
This hold true not only when we review someone else’s act, the experience we derive from our own acts is also dependent on the depth of involvement.
To offer us with lot of choices, we get offered anything and everything that is easy to make and serve. We somehow choose it out of habit and feed that to our inner self. Though digitization is somehow very smart thing to happen to human life, however it is dangerous when it turns our mental agility also digital, trying everything to fix in choice between 0 or 1. This impacts our behavior and psychology, adding to anxiety levels. We want everything to be fast, whether it is googling or searching a key in house. We are losing our patience and are always in perplexed state of mind.
It is good to have some non-digitized choices, slow but steady. Engaging in activities like cooking, flipping the pages of a book, painting, gardening etc. keeps us engaged and allow us to go deep in details and process of creation. It teaches us to allow the nurturing to happen, from the blending of spices aroma with dish to blending of colors on canvas. Taking time out to interact with more natural and physical things regularly has soothing effect on our nerves. As the life choices are never digital, so we can never always choose between a YES or NO for the things in our lives. It is the balance that we create among all the options available that gives us the independence, growth and peace.