Namita Lal, who is known for her projects Lihaaf, Football-The Goal, and Oxygen and will soon be seen in Inn Galiyon Mein, shared her experience of her recent London visit and said that it has changed a lot in terms of people’s interaction with each other. She said that while they would talk to each other earlier, this time everyone was busy on their phones.

She said, “I think phones are the biggest epidemic humanity is facing. I find it unbelievable how things have changed. I had gone to London about 25 years back for work, and we used to say good morning and smile at each other; people would be reading books and newspapers, and you know, it was a much more lively atmosphere. And this time when I went there and was travelling in the tube, I observed that everybody was on their phones. It was so gloomy. And that’s the situation everywhere, whether it’s planes or trains or dinners or restaurants or whatever. It’s just the biggest epidemic.”

“I have actually started to get very disciplined about my phone. I have tried to not touch my phone for at least an hour after I get up, and I switch off my phone and put it on sleep mode at nine o’clock, so I say my good nights to my friends and family at around 8:30 pm, so that gives me about a couple of hours before I finally get to sleep, so I start reading books at about 9 – 9:30 pm,” she added.

Namita further mentioned that this year her intention is to read a lot more books. She said, “I’ve made a reading corner for myself, and that will not have my phone with me. And I have cancelled all notifications.”

“The good thing is that when they don’t keep popping up on the phone, you have less temptation to keep going and seeing what it is. That’s a great hack, if there is any, is to not get any notifications,” she added.

However, she agrees that life without phones is impossible because it has all our data. She said, “If there was one thing that I would not leave home without or when I would get paranoid if it gets lost, it is my phone, but that’s because we have so much content on the phone. It’s our banking, our payments, our contacts.”

“I struggle to think what would happen because we don’t even remember phone numbers. We used to at least remember 20 or 30 phone numbers in the good old days, but now at best, I try to remember a few numbers to call,” she added.

Namita also pointed out that since everyone has a phone today, people don’t take it well when their calls or messages are not returned timely. She feels people indulge more in virtual connections than personal ones.

She said, “It’s absolutely crazy; instead of talking, we’re just writing. Words get misinterpreted when you write. You can’t take it back, and your words can totally get misunderstood. So I try to pick up the phone and talk to people whenever I can. And that’s another thing that I’m doing a lot more these days is talking to people, reading books, and not looking at my phone all the time. But the good part about phones is that they’ve created so much content for people, and everybody is consuming it, and that content helps the industry so people like me benefit from it. Otherwise, if it was just cinema and theatres, it would be difficult for small filmmakers to make films and for lots of people to watch them.”

“Also, you connect with old friends; people know where one is, posting pictures of family and friends so that you can stay connected is all very good. But we just have to limit our usage of it. It is absolutely not nice for it to be such an epidemic,” she ended.