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Full Video: Cellphone addiction and loss of self-esteem || Acharya Prashant, at Cummins College, Nagpur (2022)
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Video Information: 11.11.22, Cummins College, Nagpur

Context:
~ Does cell-phone addiction lead to self-esteem?
~ How to deal with cell-phone addiction?
~ Are the current generation heavily dependent on cell-phones?
~ How to build real and long-lasting relationship with people?
~ Is face-to-face conversation better than texting?
~ Can technology replace humans?

Music Credits: Milind Date
~~~~~

Category

📚
Learning
Transcript
00:00Internet or Google come as a handy support, a backup. If you do not know what
00:12to do or how to respond, you can rely on them. But in real life, real-time
00:18situations, that doesn't happen. You cannot depend on Google to respond to
00:24someone who is standing right in front of you, right? So this is something
00:30you must be cautious of. It's a phenomena widely experienced. Technology cannot be
00:44a substitute for real-life interaction and planned statements or responses can
00:57never carry the authenticity of something that is spontaneous.
01:03Communication through text appears safer but is also duller. It does not carry the
01:20warmth and liveliness of a face-to-face thing and it can become a habit to hide
01:30behind text, right? Do not let that become a habit. That habit simply means fear. Do
01:43not protect fear. If there is something that cannot be said face-to-face, ask
01:52yourself, does it deserve to be said in writing? The same phone that you use to
02:04text people can also be used to talk and it's not as if texting necessarily saves
02:14time. You can get into an endless exchange of text messages and that can
02:21go on for two hours. Does that not happen? Text, text, text, text, text, text. And when
02:29you are not texting, you are waiting for the other's text and WhatsApp is showing
02:39Rajiv is typing and you are waiting, what is he typing, what is he typing, what is
02:47he typing? Even before he has pressed the send button, you are already shadow boxing.
02:57You have already come up with five possible options. This is what he might be writing
03:05and if he writes this, I'll reply this way. How is that saving time? Please tell me. There can
03:14be instances when text can save time. Yes, obviously. So, you don't want to go through
03:20the entire process of ringing someone up and it's not worth it. So, you simply write two
03:25words and get done with it. So, that is all okay. But if a matter can be finished off
03:35in two minutes, five minutes, directly by conversing with that person, either face-to-face
03:42or on call. What is the need to hide behind text? Similarly, what is the need to hide
03:52behind knowledge? External knowledge, I mean, Google knowledge. Those who have known have
04:02said that you know only when you live. Your knowledge is your knowledge only if you are
04:13living that knowledge. If knowing does not become being, then there is no knowing. Knowing
04:27must turn into being. Can Google knowledge turn into your being? You can quickly Google
04:37something and spit out the fact or the information and be done with it. It will not become your life.
04:46It will not get into the depth of your mind. Won't help much. Use technology to your advantage.
04:57Do not use it to handicap yourself. Technology must be used to do what you cannot do. Technology
05:13must not become a substitute for what you already can healthily do. If I have the benefit of
05:27technology, what should I develop for myself? A car or a crutch? Crutch, you understand? What is
05:43a crutch? The things that you use to assist yourself in walking, baisakhi. Now, you have
05:53these two feet already, but they cannot take you at 60 kmph. So, let technology give you a car.
06:03The car is furthering your power now. It is furthering your ability. These two legs cannot
06:13take you beyond the speed. Instead, if you use technology to develop very advanced crutches
06:23with AI and feel proud of it, what have you done to yourself? Instead of augmenting the
06:33capacity of the legs, you have debilitated the legs. Maybe with your legs you were able to go
06:42at least at 10 kmph. Now, with the assistance of technology, you are going at 2 kmph. Now,
06:52that brings us back to the fundamental question of who is the user of technology and that is
06:58where internal liberation lies. No technology will be of use if you are internally not free,
07:08not luminous. Whatsoever is given to you, you will use it to your own disadvantage. You have
07:17heard the old story of the monkey with the sword. Right? Those were bygone times. So,
07:30all that the monkey could have was a sword. But these are times of advanced technology.
07:36The monkey can have an ICBM tipped with a nuclear weapon. What will the monkey do? The
07:51monkey has been given great technology. What will the monkey use it for? The same thing that his
08:02ancestral monkey used it for. What was the sword used for? The monkey was given the sword. Actually,
08:12he picked it up. Did he use it for any creative purpose? If we remain monkeys within,
08:26whatsoever comes to us, powers, rights, knowledge, technology, we will use it to
08:35our own detriment, our own destruction. But we don't understand this. We think just because
08:42we have something, it is for the better. No, not necessarily. It all depends on who you are and
08:53that's the central Vedantic question. Who are you? If you are not right, whatsoever you have,
09:00will be just wrong for you. First of all, you have to be right within and then whatever you
09:10have can be used rightly. You go back to the epics. You think of all the classical villains,
09:25Ravan, Kans, Duryodhan, Hiranyakashyap. They had a lot. Ravan was the superpower of his times.
09:39Lanka of gold, so much weaponry as well and he had a lot of knowledge too. Hiranyakashyap too
09:53had a lot. He had been gifted with blessings. Duryodhan was so powerful. The question is,
10:11what were these people using their power and knowledge and money for? Were they villains
10:20because they didn't have anything? Why are they still remembered as the topmost baddies? Why?
10:31Because they didn't have much? No, they had a lot but were operating whatever they had from a bad
10:43center. So, it's the center within that means everything. If the center is false,
10:52then all technological progress will simply mean climate change, extinction of species,
11:01actually the sixth mass extinction phase in which we have already entered. Now,
11:09this kind of mass extinction could not have happened to the caveman, to the ancient man.
11:17Why? Because he didn't have technology. Internally we have remained that same old caveman but
11:26additionally today that caveman has a lot of technology and power. So, he has used that
11:35technology, that power just to finish himself off.

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