Screentime

" Your eyes have inflammed. They are very dry. Do you use your screen a lot?" Dr S, my Opthalmologist asked me.

" Yes I use the screen approximately for 12 to 13 hours a day," I said with a prominent guilt in my voice. I did feel guilty while speaking about it at the same time it was reality.

"Don't you think that is a lot? As you can see it is affecting you", Dr S continued to maintain the eye contact with me making me feel even more uncomfortable.

" I work on laptop for over 10 hours and then maybe Putri hours on my phone," I feel like I am in a courtroom, appearing for a cross examination.

" You need to significantly reduce your screen time, " said Dr S with a stern voice.

" So are you suggesting I should resigned from my job?" I asked knowing that the question was stupid.

" Sarcasm is not your friend my dear," Dr S was not a person to mess with. If we are studying in the school of sarcasm he was the principle of it.

" I am not being sarcastic. This is the reality. I can cut down my personal screen time but the 10 plus hours of laptop viewing, its still going to stay. It is for my job," I justified my earlier statement.

" Okay then. I will consider you as a lost cause and prescribe you some medications. These eye drops take them for times a day. You cannot use them immediately after waking up and before going to sleep. Maintain at least 4 hours of gap between the administration. Probably then the dryness and reckoness will slightly reduce," he give me the prescription and then looked at my confused face. " I hope you can manage this. Of course you do not have any option other than managing it." Dr S with his snarky remarks one after the other. I knew everything he was saying was a right and it was not practical as well.

I took the prescription and when do the nearby pharmacy. While the pharmacist was giving me the prescribed eye drops I kept on thinking. My work is completely tired to the screens. While working I require both my laptop and my phone. I am keeping the brightness of both devices as low as possible to avoid any damage. I am trying to minimise my usage of both devices as much as possible. I have almost stopped watching YouTube and movies on my phone and a laptop. I have minimised overall phone usage. But still it is not helping me. The main factor that is responsible for my eye inflammation is the constant exposure of the laptop screen for 10 hours at work. Definitely I cannot reduce that. That is something which is paying my bills.

This made me think even further. I felt that we are the slaves of the technology. Technology is helping the industrialist and capitalist. However this week technology is affecting our health. I need the technology to continue to survive. The same technology is affecting my health. When I visit the doctor then the same technology that has affected my health help me to pay the bills. I felt like I was in vicious cycle. I used Technology, it effects my health, I visit the doctor to improve my health, the money I have earned from using technology enables me to buy medicines, I get better to again work with the same technology.

This is a struggle I cannot explain to anybody. This is the cycle in which I am trapped. I know I am not the only one. There are many with me who are facing the same situation. Look at the irony. I am writing this while looking at a screen. I am expecting someone to read this while looking at their screen. I am not only increasing my screen time but I am also increasing someone else's screen time along with me.