Prashirwin Naidu
WE live in a sad, decayed generation where the phone holds more prolific power than a book with a few pages. Imagine if there were no phones and all you had to hold was a book. Where would we be right now?
Social media continues to rob, steal, kill and destroy the youth, turning them into soft, pleasure seekers looking for a high. We long for validation, the perfect photo to post on Instagram and the extremely heavily edited physique that we are so programmed to desire. With just a click or swipe away on to the many other unattainable edited bodies.
Books are an auto simulation of outcomes you need for the better life. You are able to live an experience out through imagination, without having to learn it the hard way in modern reality. The sad reality is 40% of people don’t read as many do not see the value in a few pages.
The phones are like a pit bull; once you look away it will rip off your face. Yes, technology now is more advanced than the first spaceship released into space. In reality that could be a detriment to the youth and older people as not only do millennials struggle with this so do older people as Facebook has become the third largest religion and Christianity being the first. That’s 1.69 billion members on this social media platform meaning many are perpetually being fed garbage in and garbage out depending on what your intention is and who you follow or befriend. Some 2.382 billion people are Christian believers of this 7 billion population planet. Facebook is not too far away from Christianity. This statistic just pinpoints where our priorities are and where we are going in a more technological advanced society where there is a high chance of us becoming zombies and slaves to the screen and building our character not in person but rather through fiction of social media.
Social media not only robs you of precious time with family, it robs you of your youth. The phone is a highly addictive tool. Imagine how many hours are wasted waiting for a “like” or for someone to view your story. It can be heavily draining as this creates tension in the body and as tension piles up the more it creates fatigue thus making the average individual more tired and not being able to take on the day with full force of vitality.
It’s not to late. Reading is like a muscle, once you consistently focus and approach it with repetition you get better gradually. If a person consistently does a habit like reading every day consistently for the whole year or even five days a week you actually improve exponentially over time on any given habit that you consistently aim at practising daily for a high return on investment. Meaning you get quicker and more efficient in completion. The brain always desires a goal and target and once you reach a plateau it will want to break through and be equipped with a more harder challenge. Thus expanding your horizons and mental, emotional, physical and spiritual capabilities. Learning keeps you young. Albert Einstein once said “Once we stop learning we start dying.” We are either growing or we are slowly dying.
Pain and pleasure dominates our culture in life, we must face two decisions - pain or pleasure - so the phone and social media is a quite an expedient escape. It is said if someone sends you a text and you drop what you are doing to see it, that robs you of 21 minutes of concentration time making it harder to sit down and fulfil your work obligations. Reading will resuscitate you and bring you back to reality. Life is long, it’s our decisions that make it short. On average a person can waste hours scrolling through Instagram and watching TikTok videos. The phone is great for communication yet from my perspective, we lack depth and privacy. Everybody knows everything about you.
When you pass away nobody will really know your struggles, they will just see a picture perfect photo a smile when really deep down you were alone, stressed and anxious and tackling your own purpose and then people will suddenly be shocked at the news when they hear the real story about your inner demons and the turmoil and upheaval you were fighting for which there was a light and a way out to happiness. Life is not a surface or a simple picture. Reading is like artwork, it’s a canvas requiring many interpretations over and over again. A book is an artwork, a freshly painted meaningful life-changing canvas that could change your whole life perspective and purpose for good. It just matters what you consume.
The phone moves you away from responsibility. We become so fixated with keeping up with the Joneses we neglect our purpose, which is to provide value and help others. It moves us away from bearing your own burdens and taking up your cross.
Prashirwin Naidu is completing matric in 2021 (hopefully).
Sunday Independent