MIXED reactions spur out with the order of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) as some areas of Cagayan de Oro City were unable to temporarily call, text, or use mobile data during this year’s celebration of the Higalaay Festival 2018. It was very entertaining and quite revealing for me to read some of the posts of my friends in various social media sites.
To start with, I somehow felt that there is already some truth in the idea that we are so attached with gadgets that we created a certain dependency with it. I am not sure if it was just mere entertainment, but I read some posts that a lot of relationships were broken because of the temporary disbarring of signals in the city.
While communicating became a lot simpler and convenient in the current times, I feel that somehow technology made us become lazy, less creative, and at some point insincere. When all of our technological resources are taken from us, we need to realize that our competencies and our innate capacity to share, relay and communicate our thoughts is our inner power. No technology can ever over power it.
Therefore, more than harnessing our technology, we need to harness our way of communicating with others. The challenge lies in the question, can we still communicate even in the absence of technology?
I also observe how the temporary disabling of the signal in the city have been very much appreciated by a lot of people. I read a post from a mother on how the event forced her kids to be detached from their gadgets and, after a long time, the family were able to have quality time expressing their thoughts to each other.
This made me realize how our technological dependence created a connectedly disconnected environment. While we are connected to the internet, it provided several gaps in our relationships. Now, I gained a better understanding while several coffee shops and restaurants would rather lose customers than providing WIFI connection because the spotlight is taken and veered away from their products.
This connectedly disconnected culture also deviated our attention from seeing the many beautiful things in our environment, not to mention the many colorful, inspiring and awesome aspects of the celebration of the feast of our city.
But more than the celebration of our beautiful feast, there is so much about our city that perhaps we, kagay-anons need to explore, even without the need of disabling our signal. This can even be perhaps our way of helping the city’s department and also enriching more our Kagay-anonness.
In this divisive world, we should not allow the interference of our signals take away our capacity to connect. There is so much beauty in our city and even in the world that goes beyond our dependence to technology. Our usage of technology can improve our appreciation of the many awesome things in our surrounding, but in the end, we need to nurture our inner appreciation of the little things and our connectedness with the people in our community.