It's easy to blame technology for what we perceive to be a vast

In the words of Saroo Brierley, “It's easy to blame technology for what we perceive to be a vast disconnect between people. We're so wrapped up in social media, texting, online dating — in many ways, we're addicted to our devices.” — there is a tone not of condemnation, but of reflection, a voice calling us back from the glittering mirage of the modern age. His words rise from a deep well of human experience, for Brierley himself once used technology not for escape, but for reunion — to find his lost family after decades apart. Thus, when he warns us of disconnection, it is not a hollow criticism of progress, but the lament of one who knows both the power and peril of technology.

In ancient times, the wise spoke of tools as extensions of the self. The blacksmith’s hammer, the sailor’s oar, the farmer’s plow — these were not separate from the hand or the heart that wielded them. But in our time, as Brierley observes, the tools have begun to master the hands that hold them. What was once created to unite has, paradoxically, begun to divide. Through our screens we can reach across oceans, yet we struggle to reach across the table. We speak endlessly, but listen rarely. We are surrounded by connection, and yet we feel profoundly alone. It is the ancient story of abundance turned to excess, of light that blinds as easily as it illuminates.

Saroo Brierley understands this paradox intimately. As a boy lost on the streets of India, he grew up far from the home he barely remembered. Years later, he turned to Google Earth, scrolling through satellite images for years in the hope of finding the town where he was born. Through this digital map — a creation of the modern age — he rediscovered his past, reunited with his mother, and reminded the world of technology’s miraculous potential. Yet even he, who used technology to heal the deepest wound of separation, warns us that it can just as easily widen the distance between souls. The same screen that guided him home can also become a wall between one heart and another.

The ancients might have called this struggle the balance between form and essence — between the outer instrument and the inner truth. For they knew that every gift of the gods, if used without wisdom, becomes a curse. Prometheus gave fire to humankind, but with it came destruction as well as warmth. So it is with our devices: they are the modern fire, radiant with possibility yet dangerous in their excess. The problem, as Brierley reminds us, is not in the flame itself, but in how we hold it. The addiction he speaks of is not only to our phones or our screens, but to the illusion that through them, we have fulfilled our need for connection. We mistake presence for attention, messages for meaning, and noise for companionship.

It is easy, as he says, to blame technology — to see our loneliness as the fault of the machines. But the ancients would have reminded us that no tool is evil in itself; it is only a reflection of its maker’s heart. The disconnect we feel is not born in silicon or circuitry — it is born in the soul that has forgotten how to look, listen, and love without distraction. The world’s screens glow brighter than ever, but the human gaze has grown dim. The heart, once tuned to the rhythms of nature and the quiet of conversation, now beats to the erratic pulse of notifications and virtual applause. The challenge, then, is not to cast away our devices, but to reclaim our mastery over them — to use them as bridges, not prisons.

Consider the story of the ancient philosophers in the agora, who gathered under the open sky to speak face to face, to debate, to teach, to understand. They had no devices, yet their minds and souls were electric with exchange. What they practiced was not communication as we know it, but communion — the meeting of minds in shared presence. This is what Brierley urges us to remember: that true connection is not measured in likes or messages, but in empathy and presence. We must once again make space for silence, for touch, for the sacred art of undivided attention.

So let this be the lesson drawn from his words: technology is a servant, not a savior. It can carry the voice, but not the heart; it can deliver the message, but not the meaning. We must learn to use it with wisdom — to reach outward without losing the capacity to look inward. Spend less time counting followers and more time understanding friends. Put down the device when the moment calls for eye contact. Walk beneath the sun, not just the screen’s blue glow.

For in the end, as Saroo Brierley himself has shown, the greatest connection is not digital but spiritual — the moment when one human heart truly finds another. Let us not forget that the most powerful network we possess is not online, but within the human soul itself — ancient, boundless, and eternal.