Digital disconnects in Real Life

Prioritize, she repeats this word as a mantra everyday or at least the first thing on those mornings, when she decides to skip her Pranayama routine. She uses her mornings, before the family life usurps her time to put on the wifi and check her mails and blog updates. 'Usurps' is what she feels  - to the real and immediate world making demands on her. Well, meals have to be cooked, chores to be done, family attended to, all in a half-absent, impatient to surf, state of mind.

Mail is quick on most days. There is almost never anything personal for her. Phonecalls and skype takes care of her personal interactions. Her gmail is just another address for spammers. Elitify and Home-Decor with their daily mails, does all this stuff get manufactured and updated on a daily basis? What algorithms and search engines and e-robots are behind it. For her non-technological mind it is too much to fathom, a vocabulary which she cannot begin to comprehend.  She contemplates and procrastinates over creating another personal mail id.

Of late, blogging volumes seem to have reduced. A totally perfunctory observation based on her own blog, partly corroborated by the other blogs she follows. Contests and Marathons act as a catalyst, but blogging fervour in her circle seems to be fizzling down. With most of her fellow-bloggers spouting a personal blog of sorts, writing about everyday life, books, parenting, other socially relevant issues - a range of topics and writing styles in itself but with appeal to a mostly fixed and limited audience. Then it was the blogs of savvy networked bloggers with large follower counts and unique content or delivery which stood out. Her own blog is at a cross-roads of sorts. Like an old Amby in the slew of suave, savvy, sleek automobiles.

The demands of the real world interrupt her online presence too. As if Facebook and random gmail chats were not  demanding enough on her time, one is now part of E-groups and forums where one has opted to contribute. Long absences in digital media is a big no-no. Comebacks happen but the 'out-of-sight, out-of-mind' for ordinary digital world citizens is ruthless. The stress is on eye-balls and engage-ments. The daily virtual walk to smile and exchange hellos to make one's presence felt is mandatory. Which if in lieu of a walk in the park so be it. Smiling at strangers is totally allowed and often necessary. Sarcasm, wit, domain, technology, special skills are one's special tools of the trade. If you don't have these essential life-skills fear not. You can always fall back on persistent and unashamed gate-crashing. Not only is it very welcome but often encouraged in these circles. If blogging was all that one had assess one's worth or even health, then she ought to try harder.

When was the last time she read a newspaper, even the online version. Most of her information, she receives from Twitter. Not as straightforward as it seems. If you are a sucker for information, or  caught up in a cross-fire of communication and curious enough to see it to the end, one is forever trudging in and out of lanes, alleys and timelines of unconnected unknown people in the virtual world - each of them enticing you with their choice of words, opinions, pics, DPs. Another name for ADD is Twitter, surely. 

Time is her biggest enemy and the day is spent in bits and bytes of random incoherence, which makes sense in itself but having been dished out as a complex push mechanism of sorts based on one's followers and preferences and times of checking in that you could very well miss some important news. Yes, that was the biggest digital disconnect. And all the information in the world may not be what she really really wants or needs. Surely one can survive without following random fashion updates of twitteratis, or seek spiritual or dharma bytes decoded by a stranger or follow obnoxious gynaecologists or know-it-all political analysts.... Where do the simple folks hangout nowadays?

In the Digital Media, you have to have a defined objective for being,  your original catch phrases, opinions, well-defined ideas, mind SEOs et al. A language very different and dynamic to the ones she knows and is learning. Which is why she is s misfit - straddling both these worlds and being neither here or there. Those who hold full-time paid jobs with these their digital commitments earn her biggest envy and admiration.

The manifestations of this lifestyle for herself have been many -  talking to the husband in between his social media commitments, obsessively logging into blogger to check on comments - the anxiety when footfalls don't convert to comments, the TV as a mere fixture or oops babysitter, twitter feed as bedside reading while simultaneously paying library fines, increased exhibition of isolated i-phone introvertism.....weight-gain due to lack of exercise,  display of extraordinary impatience when battery is charging.....the tips of the digital ice-berg!

Today was a day to switch-off and take stock. Call on a flesh and blood friend and feed on real samosas! She did log in but only to look up the recipe:)