My first HCI meet was very productive
First of all, the name itself says a lot. I used to be scared about meeting new people because I was scared of groups.
Then I said, with a name like “Hugging Club of India”, how tough could it be? The name itself says “hugging”, that word itself shares a lot about the philosophy of people and intentions of people behind it. It’s very “dis-alarming”
I had been putting off the meet since a few months now, but the only constraint was the distance to the meeting location.
Finally, I dragged myself one Sunday and I went for the meet.
When I entered, I got a hug from Umang. Then we introduced ourselves and we were introduced to the counsellor at the Venue.
The topic of the day was social media addiction. Before we started the discussion, the counsellor asked us to deposit our phones and they took away our phones. This was really helpful as we could all really plug off our phones and we could focus on actually talking.
We all started sharing our experiences and viewpoints. We got hear about the same issue from multiple angles and then the counselor presented us with a clinical definition and throughout the meet, her attitude was very positive and everything she shared was very informative.
We had amazing, multiple courses of snack and tea.
There was a 20-minute session of games, which got stretched into 40 minutes.
At the end of it, the counsellor put a very potent point. None of us had phones during the entire 2-3 hour duration, yet we enjoyed talking to other people, most of who were strangers to us. Most of all – we played games with them. And that showed our social media addicted minds that there’s pleasure to be derived from interacting with people.
She has shared a couple of very important tips to help us gain our focus back after an elongated social browsing session and re-engage with the rest of the world with the help of PEACE and Mindfulness principles.
That was the greatest takeaway for me.
The venue was someone’s home, and it had awesome decor. The emphasis on customer service (despite it being a free event) was especially commendable.
Overall the session solidified a lot of principles for me that I had been practicing consciously and unconsciously.
I hope I made some friends too. The Hugging Club Of India #HCI
