Remember the Adarsh scam?
The Aarushi Talwar case?
Or the IPL match fixing scandal?
Probably not. This is all old news, right? Not really. All of them hit us pretty hard when they came out. They stayed with us for the next couple of days and we spent a lot of our time, thinking and discussing them with ourselves and our friends and relatives. You could walk into a room and the people would probably talk about them too.
Take for example Kasab’s execution.
“Ajmal Kasab is finally hanged!”
“Victory is ours! Justice is finally done!”
But 2 days later when news came out that our policemen still didn’t have bullet proof jackets, we didn’t even click on them. Kasab was dead, and the mass moved on to the new trend. Somehow, after the execution, I felt that justice was still not done. Kasab’s execution doesn’t make out policemen bulletproof. But you walked into a room, trying to talk about bulletproof vests, you could be termed outdated.
People move on. And in this age of 4G speeds, we move on faster than we could care.
We see a post on the Internet. It is read. It is liked. It is shared. It is commented upon. And then it is forgotten. How many of us really remember what we shared on the social media 2 months ago. Not right away. If we are reminded, we gasp –
“Ooooooh yeaaaaaaah! I remember that! It happened, what, a year ago?”
Nope. Just 2 months ago. But decent guess.
This is not a problem that is new – there have been studies that have shown that up to 40% of the people try to Google information instead of remembering it. And 25% of these people forget the information as soon as they see it.
AS SOON AS THEY SEE IT.
Why? Because most of them think that it is going to be there if they need it again. Which may never happen, because getting bored in this world of Internet is not possible. Pages after pages of stories that would have normally shocked you to the core 10 years ago – don’t even surprise you now.
A man raped its daughter? Oh, my god! How can they?!
But wait!
A star got an awesome wedding! Cool! Like. Share.
Oh! Oh!
Look at these adorable gifs of puppies! Like Share.
Just logging out, but..
Oh shit! 10 people died in a small town of Peru. Sad! Share.
But but…
This great write-up on feminism! Nice! Like. Share. Comment.
And on and on and on and on.
Two days later no one remembers the star wedding photos we shared. We do not remember what happened to the poor old woman who lost her son to a natural calamity.
Yes, the Internet has made a lot of things accessible, but it has made the same things volatile too. No one wants to hover over a piece of news they read 3 days ago.
We want new things right now. On the go. While on the potty, in the trains, in flight, everywhere.
And in all this pace, we lose the experience, the emotions a story can give us. The feeling, the empathy, the meditation a story deserved. In all the hullabaloo we have forgotten to think of the stories we have just read.
And that is why it is like a one night stand.
That is why the Internet is like wham bam, thank you, ma’am. We lie down with a story and then move on to the next. In the moment of reading, we do feel a lot of euphoria and sadness. But as soon as the tab is closed, we are done with the story, unless the story has an unnatural twist – remember Indrani Mukherjea?
We need to stop once in a while and really read. Then after reading, we need to keep aside the phone, get away from the computer and think. Think about what we just read – digest it, instead of eating it all and shitting it all out without digesting.
Maybe then the stories will get the attention they deserve. Maybe then we will actually care about something.
Instead of just liking and moving away.
Imagine how the story would feel after you had a one night stand with it?