Mobile Mania ...

In the last ... perhaps six years, I have changed my smartphone five times ... Okay, so twice was because my phone was lost/stolen, but the other three times were upgrades ... Rather than go into the personal history of Brainjuice's mobile devices (which of course were more than five, including those not classified as smartphones), the focus of this post is actually to talk about an emerging social trend which I find rather disturbing ...

I don't know when I started to notice it, but safe to say rather recently, that every time I'm on the train, I find people glued to their devices ... Now, five years ago, I could swear that the scene I witness on an almost daily basis was not that frequent, but now, every single time I go on the train, at least seven out of 10 people will be scrolling through their phones ...

The most recent one was when I was on the train heading probably either to Bukit Bintang or MyTown, and I was sitting at a corner seat, and I looked up, and everyone sitting on my side were on their phones ... Then I looked up further and everyone on the opposite side were on their phones ... If an LRT car has a seating of four on one side and four on the other (unfortunately, I can't recall whether I was on the LRT or the MRT on this particular occasion), then that would be eight people, myself included, on their phones at one given time, which would make my estimate above pretty accurate ... It was then that I realized I should have taken a photo of the scene as proof of how this rather new trend, I should say, is fast becoming a norm ...

Now, I don't think there is anything wrong when people scroll through their phones, lost in their own worlds ... After all, what is one supposed to do on public transport other than while away their time doing something ... But, a long time ago, one of those activities used to be reading ... I mean, like a real book, the kind where you hold one in your hand and flip through the pages, not the kind where you scroll through an electronic device ... However, even though I can't see what people scroll through, I bet you, dollars to doughnuts, that they are looking through social media, DMs on WhatsApp, or games, instead of Kindle and other reading apps ...

Look, I'm not here to lament on the lost art of reading, though that is something to be lamented about ... Maybe that is partly the reason why I find it disturbing ... That most people rather go through stuff on social media or viral videos or games and whatnot, rather than exercising their brain the old-fashioned way ... However, I go on Buzzfeed Quiz every single time I'm on the train, so I'm the potty pot calling the kettle black ... But, having noticed this rather new norm, I try to disassociate myself from it by bringing a book with me ... It doesn't work all the time, because Buzzfeed quizzes are mindless while a novel takes a little more mental energy, but at least I try my best ... One thing's for sure, I can't be reading something like William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch (which I tried and failed) but something like The Devil Wears Prada (which I finished and find the movie version far better) ...

At the same time, whenever I'm on the train, I try as much not to look through my phone, though this is a feat unto itself ... I mean, going back to what I mentioned above, what are people supposed to do while they're on public transport? ... Staring into space, I'm pretty sure, was de rigueur when people started taking public transport, but times have changed ... Now it is the Neo-Digital Age, and whether we like it or not, we have to move on with the times ... The point is to define what we are in this new frontier of the Information Age ... For me, I will try to balance my phone-scrolling with some hardcopy reading, the operative word being 'try' ...