Smart Phone Addiction

We received new interns at my work place and being with them could not be any more disheartening.
One of my many Supervisors once said I had two strikes against me: being a girl and a three legged hussy. I shall not lie and say I grasped what he meant then, no. But I do see it now courtesy of the interns. The only difference between them and I is: I have two strikes against me while in my opinion they have three – they are girls, with disabilities and without ambition.
There is nothing as saddening as seeing educated girls with disabilities be without ambition. It is awful to witness. First of all; being a girl trying to navigate a prejudiced male dominated workforce is hard, twice as hard for a girls with disabilities and next to impossible for one lacking ambition. Instead of being alert and on the look out for opportunities this internship period could bring them, they would rather spend their every minute on the phone!
Smart phone addiction is the bane of unemployment especially for a girl. She cannot shift attention from those 140 characters, interesting WhatsApp conversations and gossip long enough to complete a task within an hour. If at all it is longer, she has to have breaks to scroll through her news feed, timeline or go like a picture on Instagram.
This marks the divide between them and I, because within two months of my voluntary work, there were talks of making me a staff member which finally happened in May. And it is official now for I got my letter of appointment last week. Would I have made staff if I kept to my Smartphone while supposedly working?
Our generation was dragged and pushed through school by parents. We all had the ‘my parents are making me go to school’ reason as to why we were in school accompanied by these dourest of facial expressions. Now, there is no such talk unless one is the child of the richest man in Uganda for them to use the ‘my parents are forcing me to work’ rejoinder. In their case, they have an inheritance to fall back on once the parents depart this life and do not see the need to work.
Regardless of the situation and inheritance. Every educated girl with or without disabilities should have an ambition and purpose beyond her Smartphone. Have a code of ethics, limit the time spent on the phone and engage with those around you. God did not make the sun shine out of these phones so do not act like it does.

PhotoCredits: Google