Outsourcing Life: Health & Dependency Concerns

Dr. Chandrakant Lahariya, renowned doctor

Mobile, cheap data and new apps have made life easier in India. Grocery comes to the house, taxi is available at the doorstep, food reaches the plate from the mobile screen. But now humanitarian aid is also available on-demand through apps – that is, someone will go with you to the market, carry your bags, stand in line for you, give you water, set up a chair for you and take care of your small and big personal facilities. It is being described as a new model of modern service, convenience and employment. But is this really convenience or a new app-based version of feudalism?

The convenience is not bad. But when they start making us sick, passive, dependent and insensitive, then we should stop and think. The facility ordered from the app may seem cheap, but its social and health cost is expensive. The country will have to decide whether it will move towards equality, self-reliance and health or towards digital feudalism? Earlier this attitude was visible in courts, clubs and in the queues of servants. Now the same mentality is returning in mobile apps, digital payments and the shiny language of startups.

There is nothing wrong in giving employment to someone. After all, service sector is an essential part of the economy. Drivers, domestic helpers, security guards, nursing attendants, delivery workers – they all also do respectable and essential work. The problem is not in the work, but in the mentality in which a capable, healthy and mobile person starts considering carrying his own water, handling his own luggage, standing in the queue till his turn or even walking a few steps is against his social prestige. When convenience becomes a spectacle, it becomes a spectacle of inequality.

This idea is not only socially worrying, it is also harmful from health point of view. Modern urban India already struggles with sedentary lifestyle, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, fatty liver, back pain, stress and lack of sleep. Doctors advise patients every day to walk more, climb stairs, do small tasks themselves, and engage their body in daily activities. But the app-based convenience culture is pushing us in the opposite direction. It says- Don’t go, someone else will. Don’t pick it up, someone else will pick it up. Don’t stand in the line, someone else will stand. That means, keep the body passive and the ego active.

Health is not achieved just by sweating for an hour in the gym. Health is built through small physical activities throughout the day – walking in the market, carrying your luggage, doing small household chores, walking to the bus or metro, standing in queues, carrying water yourself, playing with children.

Such activities are called non-exercise activities in scientific language. These are disappearing fastest in modern life. When we outsource every little task, we don’t just spend money; They also weaken their muscles, bones, metabolism and self-reliance.

Employment is important, but every employment is not social progress. A civilized society is not just about the number of jobs; It is also made up of dignity of work, labor rights, social equality and dignity of human relations. We need an economy that respects people.

(These are the author’s own views)

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