A few days ago some of the newspapers had carried a small news about the famous actor Brad Pitt, that he hid the Personal Computer of his kids so that they would go out and play!

This certainly shows his concerns as a father. Thanks to these modern gadgets, our children are losing their childhood. I remember my own days as a child. I would go out and play with my friends in those sprawling parks. Our mothers would scold us that why can’t we stay at home for sometime. Now, the situation is different. Our boys have no real friends to play with and no lawns to play at. The expanding cities have engulfed the open spaces and the pace of city life has consumed all our relationships.

To top it all, the personal gadgets are making us more and more unsocial day by day. I remember, in those days the telephone was not a dither. In fact, it was as much a socializing tool as it was a communication tool. There were not many telephone connections. There used to be one or two, perched atop the table top of some neighbourhood grocery store. The proud owner would keep a boy to run errands. His job was to call the person from his house when someone wanted to speak to him. Those who wanted to speak had to make at least two calls. Once to request the owner of the phone to please call the desired person and then again to talk to him had he come. There could be some calls in between to check if the person in question has come or has he been called. This set the sweet relationship in the community and invariably made the grocery store a pivotal point.

Even when we had a telephone at home, all us children would run to pick up the receiver. Those who were left behind felt offended and that would lead to many altercations. Our parents had to intervene and I also remember that at some point of time the issue was resolved by fixing a turn by turn responsibility for picking up the call. Still, an out of turn act would cause an altercation every now and on.

It is really a pity, how have the things changed for the worse. Now, each one of us carries a mobile phone in his or her pocket. This is so much personal that no other person would dare to pick up a call on someone else’s mobile phone. At times I wish someone would, but I see my daughters non-bothered even while my phone keeps ringing near to them; and in case I happened to pick up their phone by mistake (the ringtones are so much similar and so very confusing), they would feel annoyed and agitated.

I also remember, when the television had first come to Indian homes. It was probably in the early 70s when we had a cricket match between India and England that our beloved national channel thought of doing it big. Because of my father’s enormous interest in the game as a spectator, our parents were amongst the very first to have picked up a TV set. I remember, the whole neighbourhood would gather around the monstrous machine and would not move until the program came to an end (thankfully it was no 24/7 telecast at that time) or we had to go out.

Then, the number of TV sets in the locality grew and gradually all houses had TV sets of their own. Still, the whole family would folk around the gadget and had some nice time together. Since there were not many options, there was no argument about selecting the channel either. Then number of channels grew and so did the variety of programs. Each one in the family had a distinct liking of his or her own and that created problems. So, another TV set had to brought in. Now, in many household every room in the house has a TV set. As if this was not enough. Now the latest trend is to carry the iPods and ipad along so that every person has his or her own gadget in one’s hand.

While we think that we are now more contained, the fact of the matter is that these gadgets have left us all isolated. We are all becoming unsocial day by day without even realizing it. It is not the global village that throbs, but the shrinking world that now beeps in our pockets. I am not sure where would this phenomenon end!