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My Best Friend Got Machinized..

A write-up about how technology affects our lives in an inevitable manner.

Surabhi Gupta 2 Stories

Tuesday March 07, 2017 , 3 min Read

Image Source : Google Images

My worst nightmare has come true!

I had this nightmare as a kid, where I was all surrounded by machines. Machines were playing along with me, machines were feeding me food, machines were attending class with me and machines were walking all around me.

Today, it has actually come true and it didn’t spare my best friend too, transforming it into a device.

I miss spending time with my best friend, I miss its fragrance, I miss having a big circle of friends, I miss taking good care of them, I miss choosing them carefully, I miss buying gifts for them.

I miss my best friend, Real Books.

Image Source: Google Images

Books which smelled so good,

Books for which I had a special wooden book shelf,

Books I always took good care of.

I lent them only to good people and folding pages, making drawings was strictly prohibited. Well, it was allowed only for me.

Books for which I spent hours in book shop selecting them carefully, reading their summary at the back of the book.

Books which kept me company always; during travel, during coffee breaks,

Books which sang me a lullaby.

Today, like any other thing in our lives, books too have been digitized and I carry all my books in a 7" kindle where ever I go.

I can’t deny the benefits of it.

I can carry all my books in my purse. I don’t need to step out of my house and go to library and look at 10 other books, before selecting the one for me. I can order them online and get a discount too.I am already out of reasons and the ones sited above, really?

What are we missing then?

I rely on a power socket to keep my books alive, and at times I find myself sitting closely to a power source, struggling with small wire length, just because I am in middle of a story and can’t let it go. I can’t even think of smelling them, and lending/sharing a book means lending my kindle or my account, not possible. Buying a book is no longer about reading a cover page but instead about online reviews, which often ends up giving away too much of the story and the mystery is already gone! This one is for the creative ones out there. The time of buying and designing fancy bookmarks is gone and instead, we have a lifeless icon to mark and fold pages.

Pleasure of finding a folded page in an old book, and going through the lines which ones touched our heart, is history now. Instead, it is about hitting ‘Ctrl+F’ on the ‘need and read’ basis.

There is no emotional connect, no bonding and reading is no longer a pleasure to eyes. However hard we strive for anti-glare technologies, e-readers still remain a LED device and can never be soothing to our eyes.

I hate to see bookstores and libraries getting shutdown. It is like closing doors to the kingdom of knowledge and happiness.

Only reason for which I seem to agree with the whole concept of E-books is for environmental safety and reduced paper consumption. And for me, keeping technical books in e-book format, where I can find and look for any references quickly, and keeping my story books as real books is the idea of change and helping the environment.