Tech made life easier, but focus harder

The greatest risk of emerging technologies is not that machines might outthink us, but that we might forget how to truly think at all

- SRINATH SRIDHARAN

WE LIVE IN an age where constant distraction has quietly become the architecture of our daily lives. Waking hours dissolve into reels looping endlessly, emails and group chats that demand instant replies, and the insistent nudge of notifications we can neither silence nor ignore. Even the physical world conspires: the horns and clamour of city streets, the bright flicker of billboards at every turn, and the permanent display of screens in every hand.

At the heart of this is something deeply human: the yearning to belong, to be acknowledged, to be seen. Yet when these instincts are harnessed to turn attention into currency, something in our social fabric begins to fray. Almost imperceptibly, our choices shift: cafés chosen less for warmth than for the photographs they yield; celebrations measured less by joy than by digital applause. Across generations, the impulse is the same—to avoid the discomfort of stillness.

The smartphone becomes at once passport and prison: It offers a window to the world, yet quietly insists that our own lives remain incomplete unless broadcast and endorsed. In this dissonance, families lament children distracted at dinner, marketers puzzle over how to cut through feeds refreshing faster than thought, and professionals find themselves drained by the invisible labour of staying relevant.