Through the looking glass

Travelling in public transport in Switzerland (it exists and works flawlessly!), I was struck by how many parents with young children are tuned to their mobile phones. I suppose all of us are, I being no exception, since there are always urgent things that we all simply need to verify, be it the next appointment time and location, the weather or whether we still hold the high score in that online game. Then there’s the temptation to be voyeurs, via Instagram or Facebook, to provide us with the satisfaction that we still have the right fashion sense or to find places that we wish we could go to, while simultaneously envying ‘friends’ their fortune of eating at X, being at Y or mostly being photographed with Z. 

I noticed the young son sitting with his mother who was on her mobile, morosely looking at her and sporadically at her phone to see what she was up to. It struck me how easy it is for our creativity to be stifled by passively staring into a mobile, which seems to provide some direction and objective as we scroll, while making us oblivious to our surroundings or even our near ones. Seeing the loneliness of the child sitting with his mother, I perceived someone who considers this behaviour normal when he gets his own mobile. 

Looking around, I noticed a couple of elderly ladies who were talking to each other. Everyone else was on their mobiles. If you look around, this behaviour has been normalised. 

I wonder how this will augur with the next generation as they prepare to become independent individuals. Are they going to be individuals who have empathy and social bonds born of physical proximity, or are these going to be substituted by online social networks. 

My work relates to advising entrepreneurs and startups. I see an opportunity to capture the time and attention of these young people. If the time is captured for the lifetimes of these young people, it’s going to make many billionaires. For further proof, one need look no further than Facebook and Snapchat. These will be the ones who are able to provide solutions that capture a part of the daily time of young people, since it will provide opportunities to push advertising and cater to evolving needs of these future customers. But with two children of my own, I perceive an ethical dilemma. I don’t want my own children to be slaves to the mobiles which they will invariably possess, at the cost of observing the world around them and making friendships by being in physical proximity, the way my generation did. Our kids will emulate what we do, not what we say. I hesitate to provide these business ideas relating to young user traction as a means to getting to scale, to the startups. 

If their view of the world is coloured through their mobile screen, is that the right view. I wonder if that should be the only view.