This post was originally going to be about children, but the more it pressed on me the more I saw it is really all of us. Technology today is becoming our downfall, if it isn't already. Don't get me wrong, technology is a necessity of life these days. We have, in my opinion, changed the role of technology. It used to be a tool for easing life. Technology created the steam engine. Technology created cameras. Technology made businesses more efficient and brought people together. Now technology is our right hand man. Every week for school, Caleb has vocabulary words that directly relate to his reading assignments. Some days he is to write them in his notebook, others he types them on his tablet. Regardless, he must use - dare I say it?- a dictionary! I remember my first experience tutoring where a child needed to use a dictionary. He was entering the third grade. He didn't have a clue what he was doing. (If you're southern you can place your "Bless his heart" here.) I would get so frustrated. Not at him, but at the schools. Kids don't know how to research anything without the almighty Google. Caleb in his short time of weekly dictionary diving has become quite quick. See, here's the thing, I love Google. I use it almost daily. But do you remember life without a smart phone? If I didn't know something, it wasn't the end of the world. I could ask someone else or find another way. I remember being a child and purchasing encyclopedias piece by piece at the grocery store. I miss those. I miss the encyclopedias A-Z. However, Google makes it easier and less time consuming. Technology still advances to ease life and build businesses. The problem is that technology doesn't always bring us together. Phones to communicate have been amazing, until you are in the room together. Skype is a fantastic tool. Cameras on phones are brilliant. Facebook keeps me in touch with people I probably wouldn't be in touch with otherwise. Then again, having all that information at my fingertips, things like political rants, childhood issues, and personal life, can become overwhelming. When I worked at the high school, I kept my phone on me. There were times I could shoot a quick text. There were times I needed to take a phone call. But I wasn't staring at a screen for hours at a time. Now that I am a stay at home mom, I seem to have my phone on me more than ever. And I check it more often than I'd like to admit. The worst part? These are the people that need my attention. The two little buggers in the playroom doing school work and wanting to play games. They deserve more attention than some person I went to high school with and has a long post about who knows what followed by the countless pictures of some other person's school during homecoming week. I realized this unhealthiness a while back. I have this ability to put my phone down and forget where I put it. It can be a pain in the butt most times. Then, one day, I realized how great it was to be my kids' teacher without the distraction of my phone. So the next day I left it in a different room. Guess what? Nothing important happened. So I did it again. Guess what? Everything was fine. The addiction we have created with our phones is outrageous. My greatest moments are when people ask me where the pictures of Christmas are and I say, "Huh, I didn't take any." They are outraged! But I spent my time in the moment, not looking through a screen. Children today don't know life without smart phones. I get it. My kids want the newest games and tablets. Yes, they have asked for phones. We have contemplated the watches that call two numbers, but mostly for the tracking device. That would force our child(ren) to actually wear the doggone things for more than a week. Just because our kids have grown up in a world inundated with screens does not mean that is a life we have to bring them up in. We as parents are to keep them safe, and that includes from some forms of technology, or have boundaries within those areas. We need to find a balance in our lives. Right now I know that I will spend more time in front of the laptop than I normally do as I do type this and then begin edits on a children's book. That was poor planning on my part I suppose, but I'll get over it. Thankfully I work out twice today. Most days I spend more time on my phone than is necessary. It has become an addiction. Some days I turn it on and don't remember why. So I go to Facebook or Instagram and catch up. After that, what's the point? Yet there I am less than an hour later grabbing my phone. I know that my phone is my downfall as a mother, wife, friend, daughter, sister, and anything else. If I'm too busy scrolling or chatting on the phone while there are people to be engaged in, I'm not doing well. My goal is to continue to set the phone aside during school time. My goal is to lose my phone once a day (probably easier than I realize). My goal is to not jump at every text message to answer them immediately, when I have the chance for relationship building in person. Have any goals of your own? Drop a comment.
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AuthorI have a lot to say about a lot of things. Archives
May 2023
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