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NEW DELHI: Head bowed, hands together, thumbs going... the typical mannerisms of an inveterate smartphone user— whether in the boardroom or the bedroom — has now made an entry into the Urban Dictionary: The BlackBerry Prayer. That prayer is getting answered, and increasingly, the results are disastrous. The device — be it the BlackBerry, the iPhone or just about any other smartphone — that promised a world of convenience and freedom to millions of busy professionals is now threatening to make their relationships unravel as users increasingly get addicted to their 24x7 connectivity. Psychologists and social scientists that ET spoke to for this story said smartphone-triggered divorces are on the rise, especially in the last one year. Smartphone sales were up 27% this year so far over the corresponding period in 2008, and is slated to jump 30-35% in 2010, says Gartner. The complainants in these cases are mostly women who feel their husbands are busy checking mails or updating their Facebook status or tweeting, completely oblivious to the family at the dinner table. They start the day heads bowed checking messages, never mind the kids waiting in vain for the morning wish or the wife the peck on the cheek. “This is a recent phenomenon,” says senior advocate Geeta Luthra, a specialist in marital separation cases. “A year ago, no one ever came to me saying ‘my husband doesn’t talk to me because he is always on the phone’. They don’t suspect their husbands of infidelity. But they surely blame the phone for cracking their relationships,” she says. Kiran (name changed) recently filed for divorce from her CEO husband, and deposed in the court, that her husband’s smartphone addiction was the most important reason. “That device is like his wife,” she said in court. Delhi-based psychologist Sanjay Chugh says this is a case of classical dependence. “Such people want to know if they have been contacted in the last few minutes, or in some cases, even in the last few seconds. If they find there has been no contact, there is a tinge of disappointment and anxiety,” he says. Smartphones exploded in the Indian market around five years ago, with the launch of Canadian firm RIM’s BlackBerry. A horde of similar products followed, mostly notably Apple’s popular iPhone. Research firm Ascendia estimates that the smartphone market in India stood at around 5 million units in 2008. Gartner expects such devices to have a 4-4.5% share in total mobile phone sales in India in 2009. In developed markets, the addictive nature of smartphones have led to the BlackBerry, the most popular of such devices, being dubbed the Crackberry, a reference to crack cocaine. In fact, the internet is replete with personal accounts of smartphone addiction and ways to overcome it, a la quitting cigarettes. In the US, President Obama himself is said to be a compulsive BlackBerry user, so much so that the Secret Service had to amend rules to let the man pursue his passion. RIM declined to divulge its sales figures for India, but a rival phone maker says of the 90 million phones in use in the country today, some 2% (around 180,000) are high-end phones. According to Comscore, which tracks social networking trends worldwide, India is among the fastest-growing markets in this area. The total internet audience in the country in August 2009 was 35,432,000, up 17% on year-ago levels. Social networking audience in the same period grew 21% to 22,259,000. The number of Facebook users grew 220% to 81,54,000, while those for Orkut grew 34% to 152,76,000. Twitter users grew 2435% to 1,098,000. Not all these people access social networking sites using cellphones, but the numbers clearly indicate a surge in usage. Sure, for every Crackberry addict, there are three who vouch how smartphones have made their lives easier. For many senior executives, using the phone for texting, social networking and checking emails, is also a stressbuster besides a corporate companion. “Such people find this a way to relax after a tiring day at work,” says Dr Harish Shetty, social psychiatrist with Mumbai-based Dr LH Hiranandani Hospital. “But eventually, these can become bigger issues as stress points emerge leading to marital disharmony,” adds Dr Sandeep Vohra, senior consultant psychiatrist at Delhi’s Apollo Hospital. Psychiatrists say Crackberry addicts suffer from wanting to “broadcast to the world” all the time. “This gives them the feeling of one-upmanship, especially if they get comments,” says Mr Chugh. “What’s more, such people never agree they are addicted. They have a valid rationale — that they are working.” Dr Shetty points out that if there is an addiction, there will be a remedy. So, many corporate families are trying to take assertive action, by coming together, once the user realises his problem (addiction). “Kids are the best to regulate the use of the BlackBerry,” he says, citing a case where the family decided that the father, once he reached home, would deposit his phone with the kids, who will then regulate its use during the evening. And for those already separated, they have the phone for company...... (from Economic Times) |
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Married to Blackberry, Divorced from family.......
Friendship is NOT about.....
Friendship is not about “I m sorry “ its about “abbe teri galti hai “
Friendship is not about “I m there for u “ its about “kahan marr gaya saale “
Friendship is not about “I understand “ its about “sab teri wajah se hua manhus“
Friendship is not about “I care for u “ its about “kamino tumhe chhod ke kahan jaunga “
Friendship is not about “I m happy for ur success “its about “chal party de saale“
Friendship is not about “I love that girl“ its about “saalo izzat se dekho tumhari bhabhi hain “
Friendship is not about “R u coming for outing tomorrow “ its about “ nautanki nahi, hum kal bahar ja rahe hai “
Friendship is not about “Get well soon “ its about “ Itna piyega toh yehi hoga“
Friendship is not about “All the best for ur career“its about “bahut hua, abhi toh switch mar saale“
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
India-Born Nobel Prize Winner
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan wins Nobel prize for Chemistry
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LONDON: Tamil Nadu-born Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, a senior scientist at the MRC Laborartory of Molecular Biology at Cambridge, has been awarded Born in 1952 in Chidambaram, Ramakrishnan shares the Nobel prize with Thomas E Steitz (US) and Ada E Yonath (Israel) for their "studies of the structure and function of the ribosome". Ramakrishnan earned his B.Sc. in Physics (1971) from Baroda University and his Ph.D. in Physics (1976) from Ohio University. He moved into biology at the University of California, San Diego, where he took a year of classes, then conducted research with Dr Mauricio Montal, a membrane biochemist. This year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry awards Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A Steitz and Ada E Yonath for having showed what the ribosome looks like and how it functions at the atomic level," the Nobel committee said in its citation. All three have used a method called X-ray crystallography to map the position for each and every one of the hundreds of thousands of atoms that make up the ribosome, it said. "This year's three Laureates have all generated 3D models that show how different antibiotics bind to the ribosome. These models are now used by scientists in order to develop new antibiotics, directly assisting the saving of lives and decreasing humanity's suffering," the citation said. Better known as Venky among friends, Ramakrishnan started out as a theoretical physicist. After graduate school, he designed his own 2-year transition from physics to biology. As a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, he worked on a neutron-scattering map of the small ribosomal subunit of E Coli. He has been studying ribosome structure ever since. Ramakrishnan has authored several important papers in academic journals. In the August 26, 2000 issue of Nature, Ramakrishnan and his coworkers published the structure of the small ribosomal subunit of Thermus thermophilus, a heat-stable bacterium related to one found in the Yellowstone hot springs. With this 5.5 Angstrom-resolution structure, Ramakrishnan's group identified key portions of the RNA and, using previously determined structures, positioned seven of the subunit's proteins. In the September 21, 2000 issue of Nature, Ramakrishnan published two papers. In the first of these, he presents the 3 Angstrom structure of the 30S ribosomal subunit. His second paper reveals the structures of the 30S subunit in complex with three antibiotics that target different regions of the subunit. In this paper, Ramakrishnan discusses the structural basis for the action of each of these drugs. After his postdoctoral fellowship, Ramakrishnan joined the staff of Brookhaven National Laboratory in ther US. There, he began his collaboration with Stephen White to clone the genes for several ribosomal proteins and determine their three-dimensional structures. He was also awarded a Guggenheim fellowship during his tenure there, and he used it to make the transition to X-ray crystallography. Ramakrishnan moved to the University of Utah in 1995 to become a professor in the Department of Biochemistry. There, he initiated his studies on protein-RNA complexes and the entire 30S subunit. He since moved to the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, where he is a Senior Scientist and Group Leader in the Structural Studies Division. He joins the list of several Nobel laureates who worked at the laboratory. |
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
New Proverbs.......
- On the other hand, you have different fingers.
- 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
- 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
- Remember, half the people you know are below average.
- Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
- Support bacteria. They're the only culture most people have.
- A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
- Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
- If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.
- OK, so what's the speed of dark?
- Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
- How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?
- Inside every older person is a younger person wondering, 'What the heck happened?'
- Just remember -- if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
![Rare_collections_Signatures[1].pdf](https://mail.google.com/mail/images/pdf.gif)
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Wife-Subduing Siren
BERLIN: A 73- year old man, who used an air-raid siren to
stun his wife into submission, has had it confiscated by the
German Police."My wife never lets me get a word in edge-ways"
the man identified as Valdimir R told the Mannheim Police.
" So I cranked up the siren and let it rip for a few minutes.
It works every time. Afterwords, it's real quiet again."
A Police spokesman said that the neighbours had complained about the
220-volt device believed to be an old- fashioned air raid siren.
Rosina, Valdimir's wife for 32 years, said she sometimes had to yell to
get his attention." My husband is a stubborn mule so I have to get loud."
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