The Virtual world

The other day I found my grandson (14years) busy with his Tablet which was emanating some music. When

I asked what music was he was listening to, I was surprised to hear his reply “ I am not listening to music Thatha, I am composing music`. I became curious and wanted to know more details. 

 

It seems while browsing through his Tablet one day ,  he discovered an App called `Garage Band`. As a student of Guitar he was curious to know more about it. He found that it is a free music editing and recording software.  It has a variety of instruments that can be played on screen, from various guitars to more than 100 types of keyboards. The App also featured other instruments like  violin, cello, distortion pads for electric guitars, audio recording for song inputs etc   Besides providing sounds of  a variety of drums  it also  features   countless recorded music pieces that are pre loaded so it makes music recording far more easier for people lacking composing techniques. It’s like a virtual studio for music.  He learnt how to use the App by visiting the You Tube which had  a series of videos explaining the use of the APP. My grandson played a couple of  tunes he had composed using the App. I was impressed.

Another App related to travel that he showed me was even more fascinating.  It is called called ‘Maps’. A map service  that provides you with all the basic features like directions , GPS etc. What’s special about this particular App is  that it has a preloaded setting for select cities called a ‘flyover tour’ or ‘3-D tour’ featuring satellite images that are stitched together to make a seemingly 3 dimensional appearance. It gives a feeling of a video taken from a plane. Depending on the City you want to see,you get an aerial view of Eiffel Tower, Colosseum, Empire State Building, Tokyo Tower and other sights . It is a virtual tour of famous spots in selected cities. The 3 D images are so realistic that you feel as if you are really seeing the spots sitting in a plane or a  helicopter. I was thrilled to go on a virtual tour of Paris.

Sitting and listening to my grandson about the variety of games that he can play on the computer by downloading them from a host of Apps besides being able to see movies of  his choice made me understand why modern day kids literally live in a virtual world. They have very little or no time to interact or play with their friends, besides lack of open spaces for children to play near residential areas adds to the conundrum. The advent of smart phones has only made this process going from bad to worse resulting in many kids unable to face the challenges posed by the real world. I will attribute this to the growing no of suicides for trivial reasons by many kids as reported in the media.

While technology has made lives easier to live , it is without doubt  the reason for creating a society without any values. Are we witnessing a growing number of very  Intelligent zombies without any interest in inter acting with real people? I shudder to think of the future of our kids.

This has appeared in the 1-7^th April,2018, issue of Adyar Times under my column `Rajan`s Random reflections`

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