#549 A bell that once rang

  A bell that once rang

The image has been generated by the author with the help of an AI tool; GROK.

During my school days, the bell would ring a lot of times, indicating the change in the present state and signaling the beginning of the next phase. For example, A bell would be struck in the morning around 7:30 am as an announcement for morning assembly, and then after the end of each period, we would hear it twice. The school would end with the bell being struck three times.

The ringing of a bell in the afternoon in our locality would wake us up and make us rush outside to find a cart full of ice cream or other delicious street food like chaat, golgappa, noodles, dosa, etc.

I would hear the ringing of the bell while accompanying my mother to a nearby temple in the evening. The bell would be suspended from the ceiling of the temple, still much higher than my height to which I jumped and struck it. It’s a practice in Hindu temples as a mark of reverence for the Deities we worship.

In each of the above scenarios, I admired the sound that the physical bell produced! It was as if it brought some good news!

Fast forward to 2020 and years after that

The image has been generated by the author with the help of an AI tool; GROK.

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Even though social media existed long before, their popularity picked up momentum during the pandemic for quite understandable reasons. Then real connections and interactions got converted into virtual ones.

The sound of the bell that excited me as a child, got converted to some brief ringtones or vibrations from my mobile. I found myself more involved in social media than before. I’m sure that most of you might have felt this difference.

Seeing numbers around the bell icon which denote notifications elated anyone using that.

An empty jar doesn’t make anyone happy.

Social media has introduced the bell icon into the user interface, trying to create a similar excitement in users’ minds by prompting them to visit that page and click on the bell icon, which reveals the notifications.

This temptation of clicking on the bell icon or the instant gratification of seeing the account in its best form of engagement has resulted in a lack of focus on the task.

Take my example.

I have been writing since childhood but publishing my writeups on my blog since 2013. This has given me access to all my old writings. The quality of content and time taken to produce it can never be compared to what I am writing these days. There’s no competition. My 13-year-old writeups win!

I can very easily feel the difference between both phases of my writing and it makes me wonder about my ability to produce something profound at the age of my early adulthood.

Art of any form needs solace and focus to thrive. The more we’re away from distractions, the more will we be focused on our goals. Similarly, for writing, it is not easy to process 60000 thoughts that cross our mind a day and derive meaningful connections or hierarchy to present to the readers.

So, I would keep just two tabs open on my web browser; one for the work and other one for googling work-related stuff, to get rid of the temptation to jump to check notifications on my social media.

I would mindfully choose to complete the task I’m doing over instant gratification provided by the notifications on social media and use social media as a reward for completing the task.

All Rights Reserved!

Swati Sarangi
22.10.2024

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