The Swiggy delivery person rings the bell and delivers the food parcel.
The hungry and impatient generation opens the door, just grabs the packet, shuts the door and dives into the food packet faster than a PV Sindhu smash.
The receiver exchanges no warm pleasantries with the delivery person. The door is shut in 3 seconds.
What worries me more is that even these delivery folks don’t wait to exchange pleasantries as they’re in a rush to deliver the next.
In the long run, will all this lower the expectations of human kindness?
In the good old days, when some one helped us, we offered a glass of water, even enquired if the weather was hot and sometimes asked how was the day.
As technology puts more power into consumers’ hands and raises our expectations, humans seem to be turning more impatient. “I need the Uber, Ola in 5 minutes”, I need dinner delivered in 30 minutes (If it’s pizza, then it’s 29 minutes only). Not long ago, we talked about “impatient kids” who wanted the lollipop now! Now, we are dealing with an impatient generation of adults.
I saw a young man trying to downgrade the feedback ratings at a More Supermarket because the girl at the counter took a few seconds more than usual to settle the change. People cancel cabs, quit making a payment on an app, leave restaurants in a huff if things are a bit slow. It all seems surreal.
We don’t wait for answers, we google it.
We don’t wait for a customer service agent to answer, we jump onto an app and rate a service.
We don’t wait for the newspaper, we look up Daily Hunt and Inshorts
We don’t watch TV, we love on-demand content.
Ever heard of a person booking a cab on Ola and Uber at the same time and leaving in the first car that arrives, without even cancelling or informing the other cab driver.
It seems we just don’t care enough even for the people who serve us.
Ever been upset getting a marriage invite over WhatsApp. Ever seen a family at a restaurant deeply engrossed in their devices and not in conversation with each other. Do you see young people busy on a mobile phone happily crossing a signal when it’s red, oblivious to what’s happening around them.
Ever noticed people walk on the roads hooked to WhatsApp and without looking to the left or right. Are we becoming less curious about things around us as we move around. Do people still make friends on a long train journey?
Technology is disrupting our behaviour in unimaginable ways.
More weird behaviour is noticed in many of our interactions with technology so much so that it has dehumanised us and killed even small courtesies.
If the service at a restaurant is poor, we threaten to write a google review. If Swiggy or Zomato deliver late, we quickly open the app and rate it one star. Or go onto to Twitter and rant.
Convenience offered by technology seems to be overriding our logic, compassion and even kindness. And we don’t seem to be aware!
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This article first appeared in www.linkedin.com
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