Belagavi: Vadgaon village's 'zero-gadget time' experiment grabs limelight

At a time when most of us have become addicted to our mobile phones, a village located on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border has grabbed the limelight for successfully implementing a zero-gadget time to enhance social interaction among its residents.

The leaders of Vadgaon village in Athani, which has a population of around 3,000 here suggested enforcing the ban on television and mobile phones between 7-9 pm on a daily basis.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, everybody became dependent on their mobiles, including children for online learning. Even though the restrictions have now been lifted children and even elders are addicted to their mobiles.

The mobile addiction for the 400-plus children from the village was so severe that their studies were also suffering.

Realizing this, the village head Mohite and others decided to implement this experiment and they conducted awareness among villagers through door-to-door campaigning.

The same came to force on August 15 and a siren is sounded at 7 pm, and villagers have to switch off their televisions and keep aside their phones and come out of their houses for social interaction and motivate children in the learning process. In the initial phase, few villagers were unresponsive but later they too joined.