Written by, Sept. 21 -- Akshita Pandey, Muskan Shah, Moitrayee Das

An employee on his way home stops to cross the road and instinctively reaches out for his phone without even realising it as the traffic signal turns green. A student studies while listening to music and switches between videos in between breaks, and even sleeps with a podcast in the background. Silence has been made such an uncomfortable experience that people are now unable to tolerate even a few moments with themselves. Solitude has thus ceased to be a need of a healthy human being.

This modern anxiety about being alone seldom comes across as anything dramatic since it remains hidden behind socially accepted practices. The activities like mindless scrolling, multitask...