Every day, the first few things I look at are my phone on my side table, then my ceiling, and then my door. The ceiling and the door are things I need. I need a roof over me and a door to my room. But my question is: Do I really need my phone? People say technology is the need of the hour . . . but is it?

According to me, technology represents the modern advances that have so greatly impacted our life, and so we don’t think it is possible to live without it.

We all know that we can survive without a smartphone. It wouldn’t make a huge difference if we had one less video game or if we had only a laptop and not an iPad, too. And yet we complain about not having enough. Our houses are often filled with things we don’t really need. They are stuffed with artefacts to make our houses look nice and dainty. That’s the trend of today.

As a community, modern advances are linking us, helping us stay in touch and, to a certain extent, nurturing our friendships. Technology has changed our lives and may have several positive aspects, but it has also changed our mindsets and who we are as people. Now we meet each other in person less; rather than playing outside we are busy watching an episode on Netflix.

Recently, the movie Padmavat was released in India and there were violent protests about it. Cinema, a modern advance, is also at times not celebrated. Therefore, we really need to think carefully about our approach towards the modern advances around us and use them wisely.

Most modern advances are nothing but day-to-day luxuries that we don’t really need. Yet we find it nearly impossible to live without them. Modernising our thought process alone won’t help; changing the way we look at luxuries or how open we are to ideas actually shows how intellectual a person is. That’s when we start accepting life and understanding how we can be simple in the complex life around us.