INDORE: In an era wheregadgets are everyone’s weakness, 16-year-old city girlPalak Garg is sharing suggestions on how one can de-addict themselves from the virtual world and connect through yoga. Authoring ‘Meet Yourself’, a book based on gadget de-addiction through yoga, Palak, a twelfth grader from The Daly College, is aiming to make everyone realise the power of yoga alongside the ill effects of overusing electronic devices.
“Gadget addiction is a self-inflicted disease and is one of the most common kinds of addictions found among today’s youth. It becomes impossible for an individual to free himself or herself from the shackles of any particular device,” Palak said while explaining the reasons for her research on the topic.
In her book she says gadget addiction is being considered a real mental disorder in many countries, adding that anyone born after 1990 has never known a life without the internet and mobile communication. In today’s time, no one can imagine growing up without cell phones or interactive video games.
The book also explains how one becomes a gadget addict. “When you start using devices so frequently that you lose count of your actions and it becomes difficult to drop the habit of using tech gadgets for everything you do. The desire for using electronic devices gradually converts into gadget addiction. No age bar is specified for this kind of addiction and people of all age groups are vulnerable to it,” it says.In her book, Palak mentions a few actions and problems that come hand in hand with dependence on gadgets. “Social media updates become a reason to wake up every morning and checking it every few minutes becomes a necessity.”
Along with this, the problems that become evident are the need for attention, physical illnesses, obesity, easy distraction, explicit display of aggressive, depressive or violent behaviour, real-time social isolation but a strong virtual presence and effect on memory and thinking capabilities.
Palak claims that Yoga can help people do away with gadget addiction. “Yoga is a very effective practice to solve the problem of addiction by training and developing the mind, body and soul to be moderate and in a normal state in order to avoid conflicting thoughts between the urge to use gadgets and completely neglecting them.”
