Let’s buy ALARM CLOCKS

I am suggesting a ‘BUY’ because most of us would have forgotten about the last one that rightfully sat on our study table and our bed side. I searched and found one in one of the neglected drawers and the batteries have run out.

But why do we need alarm clocks?

1.    We need them so that we do not sleep with our phones. Designers at big social media companies believe that their competitors are YouTube, Netflix, Hotstar, and sleep.

If we do not set alarms in our phones, we will not have any excuse to bring them inside our bedrooms and we will not need to begin our days saying Good Morning to notifications.

2.    We need alarm clocks to remind us that we are humans who have the ability to appreciate data as well as dreams. Our data devotion is causing a dream detachment. We love numbers. An average phone user checks an email within 6 seconds of getting it. More than 75% of adults keep their phones within an arm’s reach for all 24 hours. Our kids might not be able to do so because we are vigilant and keep them away for some time (if we succeed) from their phones but we are turning into slaves of our phones which keep us engaged.

3.    We need an alarm clock to tell us that it is a tool meant to wake us up. It will solve only one problem and that’s that. It will neither solve any other problem nor add to any of ours existing problems.

‘Screen’ addiction is impacting us personally, socially, physically and creatively. Haven’t we all started spending more time with these gadgets than our family and friends? We talk less, we argue less and we do not break our silence after a fight because we have our phones to go to.

Our social interactions are ‘forwarded’ messages, snapchat stories and ‘likes and comments’ collected online. When we meet, we click more pictures than anything else. We intend to meet to make the next FB post or a snapchat story.

Our phones in our hands allow us to stay glued to one of the screens throughout the day. We do not move our bodies enough as we sit engrossed in the sea of screens.

It is sapping our creativity because our minds are always engaged. They never feel boredom. Their minds are never empty to feel the pangs of creativity.

Within the next decade, we will come full circle. Fb has given us ‘FB demetricator’ already where we do not get metrics of our posts. We would need rehabilitation from digital addiction, we will have spas for a digital detox.

We will join companies which clearly state no email policy from 06.00pm to 08.00am.

While others would hop in their driverless cars to buy an alarm clock some years later, let us order it now before it’s too late.

If you do so and watch your sun rise, please do not click a picture. Just be there.