My day out - "Digitally Disconnected"

It was a pretty average afternoon, the kind you get on vacation. A day-long family outing, with all the usual suspects: cab rides, a few dozen photos, quick payments, and a whole lot of Google Maps. But by the time the afternoon rolled around, my phone battery was gasping for air, sitting at a perilous 30-something percent. I needed it to get us back to the hotel later, so I did the sensible thing: I switched it off for a few hours. No big deal, right?  I'm not one of those social media addicts who gets withdrawal symptoms from being offline. I was just cutting off a device, not a lifeline. Or so I thought. 

The moment the screen went black, a strange feeling of restlessness began to creep in. I was at the zoo, and I suddenly felt blind. How were we supposed to know the schedule for the next show? What was the best route to see all the exhibits without walking in circles? Where was the nearest restaurant, and what did the menu look like? I had a dozen questions, and my usual reflex—whipping out my phone for a quick Google search—was now impossible. 

Every few minutes, I'd subconsciously reach for my pocket, only to find nothing. I wanted to look up the names of the animals we were seeing, check the weather for the next few hours, find out the closing time of the metro, or just mindlessly scroll through the news. It was like a constant, low-level itch. I was a ship without a compass, sailing through a zoo with no sense of direction. 

And that's when it hit me. How did we ever do this? I’m not from the generation that was born with a smartphone in their hands. I spent the first 25 years of my life with very little digital intervention. I used to go to a browsing center just to check email and got my first smartphone at 30. I even joined Instagram when I was 38! I remember a time when if you had a question, you had to actually, you know, **ask a person**. Or wait until you got home to look it up in an encyclopedia. 

If I, a man who lived through the pre-digital age, feel this restless after just a few hours without my phone, I can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like for those born into this digital-first world. The Gen Z and Gen Alpha kids who came into this world with Facebook and Instagram already running. They don't know a world without the constant stream of information, without GPS telling them where to go, or without the instant gratification of a video clip or a photo. 

No wonder we're seeing so much of this mobile addiction and the rise of people feeling more comfortable with AI bots than with actual humans. It's a scary thought. If a short trip to the zoo can make me feel so helpless, what does a lifetime of digital dependency do to the human mind?