• Home
• Parenting and lifestyle
• Why ‘Out of Order’ Is Relevant And Necessary

You’ve probably heard about our fifth installment of The Plano Adventures Series, Out of Order, and here’s why the book is extremely relatable in this day and age.

Everything runs on machines.

This probably sounds familiar to you. Every other day, there’s a new application or new machine invented in the hopes of making our lives more seamless – new applications to help you make a reservation at a restaurant, or to make payment; new devices to play games or watch movies (think Virtual Reality). Even on messaging platforms, there are ‘chatbots’ that exist to answer queries from you at any time. Technology is here to stay – it’s sleek, cool, innovative, even alluring, and sometimes revolutionary. But as the old adage goes, too much of a good thing can be bad.

Getting our screen time in order.

In Out of Order, the robots decide they need a break after realising they’ve been overworked by humans. At the same time, the humans are glued to their screens. While our gaming applications or ‘chatbots’ may not literally take a break and call in their annual leave, it is likely that we are relying too much on them.

There’s a segment in Out of Order where a husband and wife were desperately trying to contact each other over text message despite being beside each other. They could have easily turned to their sides and talked to each other, yet they didn’t.

While this may be an exaggeration, when was the last time we put down our devices to actually connect with one another? Recently, I was at the local park, and I expected to see the usual – joggers (seen), picnic-goers (seen), and children playing (seen, but with their phones instead). While I wouldn’t go so far to say it was a total nightmare, a part of me did wish their phones were, well, out of order.

This is why the fifth book of The Plano Adventures, Out of Order, is especially relevant today. Technology is helpful and it does make our lives more convenient, there’s no denying that. But it’s our relationship with technology that we have to monitor. Our applications and devices may not go on strike out of their own free will anytime soon, but it’s our responsibility to take a break from them every now and then. An over reliance on our devices can lead to a negative impact on our eye health which could heighten the progression of myopia and other ailments.

If you enjoyed reading Out of Order, please vote for us for the Popular Readers Choice Awards 2019 at https://ao.popular.com.sg/readerschoice/. Voting is only open to Singaporeans and Permanent Residents of Singapore.

Should you like to buy a copy of Out of Order, or other books of The Plano Adventures series, you can buy them in Singapore at Kinokuniya, Times Bookstores, and Popular. For international orders, you can buy them online at Amazon or Book Depository.