Featured In Mail Today, South Delhi Plus: Confessions Of A Netaholic

Mail Today/ South Delhi Plus (I saw the online version on Mail Today but a friend told me he saw it in South Delhi Plus) did a story on Internet addiction yesterday. I’ve been quoted in the main piece and there’s a separate mini-piece with my views.

(Click to see full pages)

(Photograph courtesy Sumit Jagdale)

My muscle aches some months ago, leading to false alarms of arthritis and spondilitis, came as a wake-up call about my posture, lack of exercise and most importantly, my unhealthy computer use. Ten years ago, I quit television and found it opened up a lot of time for me. Now all this while later, I find I’ve just progressed to another kind of screen. Odd it is when I think my favorite tee-shirt shows the evolution of man with the last figure crouched low over a computer screen and a caption that reads,

Something somewhere went terribly wrong!

Over and above the physical repercussions of excessive computer usage, I’m more concerned (and intrigued) with what it is doing to our minds. The Internet isn’t the idiot box but perhaps its effects are deeper. It has changed the way we do everything, from work, to managing our daily chores, to keeping in touch, to amusement, keeping informed, to building and sustaining relationships.

The last is particularly interesting to me. It is ironical that this article should have come at this time because this is the theme that’s big on my mind these days. My entry for NovelRace has to do with modern-day relationships, in the wake of technology and its effects on the social fabric, behaviour patterns and our expectations of each other. I didn’t want to talk about it, this early but perhaps I should, considering that the Internet is a social medium and writing about it should automatically include other people. So yes, it’s quite possible that I’m thinking of you when I’m creating my characters and making things happen to them.

I’m going to end by saying perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing, being a netaholic after all. Call it research for the book. 😉