I love new, advanced products and technologies. May that be the new google glass or the latest smartphone, I always want to check it out. My phone, tablet, laptop, camera are indispensable parts of my current life. I need them all the time to study, work, read, write, listen, relax and smile. I can spend days, months and years to explore the huge knowledge database in the World Wide Web through my unlimited internet connection. However, quite surprisingly, I feel unrest, somewhat bored, if I don’t have a chance to meet a human being -physically or virtually- in two consecutive days.

It is two days for me, but it might be a month for somebody else. Or it can be six months, or up to a year. Some people say it’s bliss to be in solitude, but did they ever say for how long? After all we are social beings. Ruling out some very few exceptions, we all want to love, care for, live with ‘somebody’. We are meant to have real family, real friends and real loved ones in our lives.

Back in India, I lived with my parents. I had family, extended family, best friends, close friends, friends of friends all around me. Now that I live on my own, I use technology to keep in touch with the same group and to extend it. Yes, I still share my feelings, good times and bad times with real people, using phone, email, skype, facebook, whatsapp as mediums of communication. My computer helps me work, keeps me entertained, but not at the cost of spending quality time with family and friends.

We live in a technological era, where networking with real people is rather easy. Yet, if inventions that are meant to provide service to actual lonely people makes people intentionally choose loneliness over social practices then that is quite alarming. Even though this column is not meant for the movie review, I cannot help but applaud for ‘Her’ for reviving my consciousness and better convince me about the terrible consequences of having nothing but a ‘high-tech’ life!