The trends we are going through...

The Covid-19 continues to dominate news and lives of people across the globe. Oman has identified the new strain in six people by the time we completed the first month of 2021. As much as we could be tired about the issue it is time we became vigilant again because of the seriousness of the new strain. The quarantine life can be tough when a person is on his/her own unless one has friends. Not having the opportunity to go to work and having no one to speak to can be enduring, nevertheless gives you ample time to give yourself from learning to cook, read and catch up with thoughts. “I didn’t know what was there in my kitchen,” said a friend who had to stay in quarantine for two weeks upon returning from holidays — obviously he is a husband who didn’t have to do much cooking until now. And now from quarantine we have moved on to vaccines. The dilemma, the fear have come into reality of checking out on availability of the vaccine, and when and where to go to get vaccinated. No matter where you have taken the vaccination, quarantine is necessary even for those who are vaccinated and the masks stay on the face too. Another friend travelled to a country which requires one to take injections before starting off the journey, gave it a miss and was down with malaria and pneumonia upon returning from holidays. Let Covid-19 not take all of us out of reality. We are still vulnerable to negative thoughts, climatic conditions and viruses and lifestyle diseases. WALKATHON This week, the first week of February, is observed as the GCC Cancer Awareness Week. The series of activities that are planned will all be online. The idea is to be active to stay healthy and during the annual walkathon of Oman Cancer Association, we will see ourselves walking remotely. The online life is not just for students, who probably miss their direct interaction with their teachers and classmates. We have pretty well adapted especially on zoom press conferences and meetings. Cannot help wonder whether we would get too comfortable with the current setting. But as the wise ones say, ‘Go with the flow’. Maybe there is more for us to learn and adapt. The travel industry is getting another blow as stepping out of the country is discouraged, but for the ones who want to go back home for good is still not having it easy. The tickets are tough on the wallets. Lost in translation and lost in tags are the other trends. Eager to know what is going on many went overboard in assuming too much at the same time this week also taught us the significance of tags on social media and the confusion it can create. A post on social media that was circulated had a name that was meant as a tag, it was confused as the author’s name. It came to that level of confusion because the actual author’s name was missing on the post. So should we go out and request everyone not to tag individuals? For now the scribe had to keep saying, “It wasn’t me”. These are the days of the online world and there is much that is to be learnt from the power of social media to its drawbacks. On one side we want privacy but on the other we want to share our happy moments. We thoroughly enjoyed all the facilities of apps but are saddened now knowing that our matter on the phone could be data that could be much in demand. In fact the ‘likes’ many want on social media now has a note saying for post insights, ‘Message related insights, such as shares and replies, maybe lower than expected due to new privacy rules in Europe. Just as they say there is no such thing as a free lunch. Can someone see your messages that you share with family and friends? This has been a thought that has been bothering everyone. Funny how we were so cool with the search engine with a single word providing you with a whole list of topics under the sky, and the difference is now your key words could be a motivating factor for advertisers. There are plenty more trends we have been going through. The only difference this time around is the fact that our concerns seem to be the same as the people across the globe. There is a new sense of identity because the pain and stress are the same – whether it is job related or fear of a virus or living through a pandemic era.   Lakshmi Kothaneth lakshmiobserver@gmail.com