EF#3 – Gadget is Everything to….

It’s time for another weekly challenge from Blog English Club (BEC). It’s already the third challenge. Well, on this third challenge, I would like to write more, instead of one or two paragraphs only. Why? Because I read all posts from members, whoa… they are so good. Wrote all those thing in English and averaged about 4/5 paragraphs.

Okay, before I go on with the weekly challenge, I want to introduce a new blog for Blog English Club. This blog created on last Saturday by Admins, because we believed that we are now ready. Before, we planned to create a blog after the 10th challenge. But looking at the enthusiasm from members, we think that this is the time. If you want to read more about the background of this Club and it’s development (including the blogs and members), you can read it on Dani’s post about BEC.

This week, the theme is about how gadget affects our life. 

Of course, gadget is one of the main tools that we use in our daily life. If we walking around our neighborhood, we can see that most of us already use a gadget. Either an I-Pod to listening a music, smart-phone to chat, text, video call or any other social media activities. One of my friends always using his smart-phone to accompanied him during running. He use it for how many kilometers has he been running and to listen to the music during running.

For another example is my house. We don’t have any fixed line phone anymore at home. We all have a cellphone number to contact each other. Those are prove that gadget actually already affecting our daily life in big time. Many of us already know gadget at early stage and already get used to with it.

When I was in Liberia, one of the most important thing that I need is a gadget. My smart phone. Because I need to kept contact with my family and friends here in Indonesia. And smart phone, with all those applications, was very helpful for me to do video call, text message and keeping me updates on what happened in Indonesia.

Now, after coming back to Indonesia, apparently I can’t changed my habit also. I am still using it on my daily activities. Most of my activities are involving the social media application such as twitter, path, facebook, and blog. I can’t leave my phone on the table, even when I was going to bathroom. This is one thing that I regret the most. Why? Because I feel too connected to the gadget and almost forgetting all things that really matters. Things that are exist in real world, such as your friends.

ABUSE OF A GADGET

When we are talking about how gadget affecting our life, I am sure that we all seems to connect each other with the same situations. Most of us feel can’t live without our gadget. Even when you go to restaurants at the mall, you can see those effect. They are one family, sitting together, side by side. But then, they are all caught up with their own gadget, on their hands. No talking to each other. They are communicating through the gadget.

That is an example of abuse of a gadget in our life. We are all already fixated to a gadget and forgetting what it was to live without any gadget at all. Seems that we can’t live without it. We are not even communicate directly to other person anymore. We are communicate through Instagram, Facebook, Path, Twitter, etc – you name it.

And the worst part is that now, even when you walk, you can’t live without it. You have to hold it on your hands. See everything. Read that there’s an accident through twitter, even though the accident actually happened in front of you (called me LEBAY). But that is the reality now. Kids aged 5 might also already using gadget in their life. They already know how to use it. I don’t have the kid of my own, but one thing for sure, in the future, I don’t want to give them gadget at their early age.

I posted a video that I got from a friend before. The video title is Look Up. This video is very good. About how gadget already affecting our life. There is controversy about this video also. This video reminds us to keep living without looking down to our gadget in our daily life and went viral via Youtube. That’s the controversy, they said that it was a good reminder to get away from a gadget once in a life, but then, the video went viral via Youtube and any other media that used gadget. If you want to see the video, I posted here.

MANAGE YOUR TIME

Using gadget is not wrong. Really. It is okay to use your gadget. The problem we have is not the gadget. But it’s more into how we use it, IMHO. If you use it wisely, gadget is a very helpful tools. But in the other hand, it could be a disaster. It depends on ourselves to make sure either a gadget will be a good thing or bad thing.

My opinion that most of us can’t manage our usage of a gadget so that we feel everything about gadget is a must. One of the BEC Members, Mba Joice, challenged us in Whatsapp group because of this topic. I talked to her in private. She said that she asked the challenge, three days without hand-phone, because she is also included in those who can’t live without it.

That is a good challenge actually. But most of the other members can’t join due to some works and relationship reason. Then I was thinking, because I can’t join also, I want to manage my usage of the gadget, instead of not using it at all. So… this is how I want to do it:

1. During week days, I will used the smart phone for work related and BEC related, but I don’t want to attached on it. I need to put it down when I am doing the works.

2. During week ends, this is a “Me-Time” for me and family. So, during those time, I won’t using my smart-phone too much. If necessary, I will use it.

3. Reduce my activities on social media, mostly Path. If you are one of my Path’s friends, you will know that I actually quite active there. But now, I cut it already. Unless something posted from this blog (which already sets to post directly to Path, Twit, FB, G+).

4. Manage time more better. I want to manage my time better. Priority comes first.

Well… I hope I can do it. If I can’t, then there’s something wrong with me. Because, at the end, it’s all about how we, as human, use it. Not the gadget faults.

So, how about you, how gadget affects your daily life? Are you dare to write it in English? Or you want to join the club? Feel free to click on the blog, there’s a membership-form there.