Manish Kumar

Mar 15, 2023

AA Manish Kumar Chowdhary In the first half of the last century, scientist Albert Einstein had said that technology is going to overpower man. Einstein had said this at a time when facilities like mobile and internet were still decades away from reaching the common man. It is said that first technology walks by holding the finger of man and then man starts walking by holding the finger of technology. There is no doubt that the present generation is most fortunate in terms of freedom of expression as compared to the previous generations. Expression is now accessible to the common man at large. Today in the virtual world, he has tens of platforms, where he can keep his point. But the buts associated with expression on these forums have started showing their effect. In the virtual world, the self-confidence derived from the joy of expression has been lost in the maze of ‘like-dislike’. Most people have started considering ‘cut-copy-paste, forward’ and ’emoji’ as part of their creativity. This false self-indulgence has done much harm to our language. Our expressions are getting reduced to words like ‘wow, nice, awesome, sad…’. The link which made us special in weaving ideas and sending them on paper has been broken. As a society, we are losing our language. It has influenced our thinking in such a way that despite being connected to the world, our mind is not able to think beyond a particular direction. Junk information and ideas have made the mentality so superficial that we do not want to bother to think and apply our mind. Uncontrollable expression and thinking of giving instant response has also become a part of our habit. The realities outside the virtual world are not acceptable to us. To be honest, Google has made us ‘Stupid’. It has attacked and damaged our memory. People don’t want to remember anything anymore. They know that whatever they want to know, they can google it and find it out in a jiffy. Since it is no longer necessary to know anything in advance, thinking and raising questions have also been omitted. Now there are ready-made questions and ready-made answers. Today there is a lot of information, but no one has time to analyze it. The rush to respond quickly is that we don’t even think ahead. Knowledge is no longer the result of an experimental consciousness, it is the result of professional enterprise and thoughtful investment. Such knowledge can never create a new mind and a new man. This huge opportunity for expression of creativity is pushing us on the path of arrogance instead of progress. The habit of saying anything very quickly on the Internet has made us like some kind of speed machine. Due to this, the emotional density of expression is being destroyed, a dangerous tendency to stand in the center of the crowd through any kind of absurd talk, debate is flourishing. In this democratization of expression, instead of making our identity, we are also losing our true identity. Virtual relationships of the virtual world are hidden behind an account on the Internet. The standards of friendship have also changed. Used to be best friends once upon a time. Now friendships are being decided by ‘likes’ and comments on various social media platforms. There are thousands of friends on these forums, but in real life there is not a single friend with whom one can share heart to heart. However strong the yearning for expression may be, there is a fine line between narcissism and reality. One has to be restrained in saying or telling anything on social media. This world has its own principles, its own control system. These companies have prepared such an ‘algorithm’ and have used ‘artificial intelligence’ in such a way that their machine can monitor the posts of crores of people at the same time. They are even being analyzed and monitored, which can predict what kind of social and political orientation a person has, what their preferences are, what their weaknesses are and how they can be influenced. These forums are prepared in such a way that the greed of expression cannot be controlled and we express our shallow feelings in such a way that these forums gain popularity, so that they can fulfill their commercial interests. Before saying-telling-showing anything, it should be remembered that not everything is transparent in the virtual world. The fake cloak of narcissism that has been wrapped on the assertiveness of expression needs to be recognized, otherwise we will go away from the real world in order to appear worldly in the virtual world.