On the Crossroads of Evolutionary Journey

Digital Dining Table

It was some time ago, I was sitting in a restaurant. On the table in front of me, four young men were sitting and talking.
When the waiter placed food plates before them, I witnessed a strange scene that instead of the first bite going into their mouths, every boy’s hand reached for his phone.
One captured the plate from an Instagrammable angle, another made a reel for Facebook story, the third put it on WhatsApp status, and so the cycle continued, click, post, share.
As soon as they posted, each of them got lost in their own phone screen. Likes were coming, comments were passing, they were replying, someone started checking WhatsApp messages, another opened a game. They were eating, but their attention was not on the plates, it was on the glowing screens.
Silence fell over the table. Though they were sitting across from each other, in reality, they were lost on their own digital islands.

The Silence Between Father and Son

That was the scene which shook me deeply. I hadn’t yet come out of that thought when another scene awaited me.
Nearby, an old father was sitting with his son, perhaps he had brought him out for a meal. The son was busy on his phone, in the father’s eyes was a strange loneliness. He kept glancing toward his son, wanting to start a conversation, but the son’s focus wasn’t on him, it was on a small device.
Eventually, the father turned aside, took a deep breath, and started sipping the tea placed on the table as if it were poison. His eyes were moist.

Power or Destruction?

What kind of revolution is this, my friends?
I was thinking that this is the digital era that has given us the power to talk to the stars yet made it difficult to talk to a human sitting in the same house.
It is modernity that has placed oceans of knowledge at our feet but has taken away the light from our eyes, the light that once let us look into someone’s eyes and understand their pain.
The question is, what exactly is this digital revolution?
Is it that magical lamp that will fulfill our every wish or is it a cybernetic monster slowly devouring our humanity?
Let’s look at it closely.

A New World of Knowledge and Research

Remember your childhood, for a small research topic we had to visit libraries, turn pages of textbooks, and during that process, dozens of other subjects would pass before our eyes.
Today, we have Wikipedia, Google Scholar, and YouTube, an ever-awake library. It is truly a miracle of access to information.

Revolution in Education, Health, and Employment

Even an ordinary farmer can now check the weather on his phone and save his crops.
Isn’t that amazing?
In education, it’s pure magic, a girl sitting in the mountains of Chitral can now listen to lectures from top universities.
A poor student, instead of buying expensive books, can learn through open courses.
This is an educational revolution that is erasing class barriers.
In health, the digital revolution came as a blessing. Through telemedicine, a villager can now consult top doctors in Karachi or Lahore.
AI can now read X-rays and scans where the human eye could miss details.
A patient’s entire medical record is available with one click, what a great blessing that is.
The world of business has turned upside down, a housewife can now sell handmade crafts and support her family, a young man can earn dollars through freelancing, and e-commerce has connected small businesses to the global market.
Where were such opportunities before?

The Magic of Connection

And communication, that’s the greatest magic of all.
Your son sits in London, yet you can see him on a video call as if he were right in front of you.
Social media has turned every individual into a media house.
Women, minorities, and oppressed communities, all now have a powerful platform to raise their voices.
This power once belonged only to newspaper owners or in old times to kings.

The Shadow of the Digital World

But my friends, we must understand that every coin has two sides. This shining digital world also casts a shadow that is hollowing out our human spirit.
Have you noticed that our memory isn’t what it used to be?
We don’t remember phone numbers anymore.
We don’t remember addresses.
We’ve outsourced our memory to the phone’s cloud. The mental exercise is dying.
Our new generation’s memory has become like a hard drive whose save button is always under pressure.

The Poison of Social Media

And mental health, that’s the honey-coated poison of social media. Everyone shows only the highlights of their lives.
Girls compare their faces and bodies to others’ pictures and fall into depression.
We chase after likes while genuine smiles vanish from our eyes.
To be honest, it feels as though this lifestyle is a digital theater where we are all performing for each other’s approval.

Privacy and the Storm of Fake News

Privacy, that’s an old story now. Whatever you search, wherever you go, whoever you talk to, everything is recorded.
You are an open book, and corporations and governments are flipping through every page.
Whose hands is this data in?
How is it being used?
Do you even know?
And the storm of fake news, that’s the biggest social threat.
One falsehood can go viral through a single video, and people start fighting and dying over it.
Our minds are under the control of share and YouTube buttons, we think less and share more.

The Death of Morality and Relationships

What happened to ethics?
Cyber blackmailing, online harassment, the flood of obscene content, all these are eating away at the moral foundations of our society.
Our new generation’s moral compass has gone astray.
And the greatest tragedy, the death of real relationships.
Those bonds, those affections, those corners of home once filled with carefree talk, they’re disappearing.
We’re connected to billions, yet how many of us are truly alone?
We all know the answer.

Need for Digital Balance

So what should we do?
Throw away our phones?
Cut off the internet?
No, never, not at any cost.
That would be like trying to stop time itself.
It would be like saying, cities have too much pollution, so let’s go live in a cave in the jungle.
Dear readers, the question isn’t whether technology is good or bad.
The real question is, do we use it or does it use us?
I believe we need a digital diet.
Just as we avoid toxic food, we must avoid toxic content.
We must teach our children that Facebook isn’t life, life is what exists beyond that screen.

Collective Responsibility

Governments must create data privacy laws, restrict fake news spreaders, and make internet facilities accessible in rural areas to end digital inequality.

Human or E-Human?

Dear readers, the digital revolution is like a fast-moving car, if you know how to control it, it will take you to your destination, if you don’t, it will throw you into a deep pit.
Remember well, technology is a powerful tool, but it cannot speak the language of the heart.
It can give us information but not wisdom.
It can give us friends but not true friendship.
The final thought, we stand at the crossroads of history, at the confluence of civilizations.
Before our eyes, a new evolution is unfolding.
But the question remains, are we becoming humans or E-humans?