January 6, 2014

Technology Turn Off

I'm sure you've all read this article by Jarrid Wilson by now.  If you haven't, go read it and come back.  I'll be waiting...

OK, great.  Sound like you?  It sure as heck sounds like me.  In fact, one night Jimmy and I were both sitting on the couch with our phones, scrolling our IG feeds and saying things like, "did you see THIS one?" knowing that we both follow a lot of the same friends.  It was kind of pathetic and Jimmy even said to me, "let's put our phones away, this is stupid".  And he was right.  Instead of enjoying the peace and quiet and some very rare but much needed husband-wife time, we were on our phones.

Are we that boring to each other that we need to find pleasure and entertainment from our phones and the happenings of other people's lives?  I sure hope not because what a sad, long life we will have.

When we are hanging out with friends I have been trying to enjoy their company.  Put the phone in my diaper bag and just be in the moment.  The virtual world cannot compare to the company of friends and laughter of our children playing together.

Do you take your phone to bed with you?  I do.  I know you aren't supposed to but I have always.  Jimmy uses his for an alarm so he brings his to bed too.  Jimmy falls asleep at the drop of a dime so a lot of times I lay in bed scrolling through all my various feeds and checking emails.  In the morning the first thing I do is grab my phone and pick up where I left off the night before.  Pathetic, I know.

I think about it a lot, this love/hate relationship with technology.  While I love being able to keep up with my friends and family with the click of a button, in the palm of my hand, I love finding new ideas, recipes, crafts, outfits, etc, I love sharing my ideas, recipes, outfits, etc it is also very very difficult to keep up.  It's time consuming.  It sometimes makes me feel inferior.

I think about the generations before us, how they didn't have these conveniences and how simple life must have been "back then". Now I don't know that I'd go so far to say that I wish I lived "back then" but I do think it would be nice to experience a simpler life. It's hard to even imagine a life where people aren't sitting at dinner checking their phones while at a table full of other people or actually being forced to have a conversation with a stranger because you don't have a phone to occupy your time while sitting in a waiting room.

So I'm with Jarrid on this one.  I don't know that I can divorce my phone but I think I want a separation.  We can live in the same house and we can even be cordial to each other but our time is going to be severely limited.  It's time to start focusing on what's right in front of me, live in the moment, and enjoy this life.

11 comments:

  1. I am forever harping on my husband to put his phone down when our child(ren) are awake. However, we need to make a more conscientious effort to spend time together when our child(ren) are sleeping too.

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  2. We made a new year resolution to stop the social media and most technology at 7PM every night. 5 days in and we are doing really well. Sometimes a break is for the best.

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  3. Forget 'back then' I remember what it was like 10 years ago! I was REALLY struck by this when visiting a friend this weekend. I've grown up with her and her family. She was home from grad school, her younger sister was home from college and we were visiting and catching up. After a while though, I was interacting with Boomer, and then I looked around the room. Every. Single. Person. In the room was attached to a screen. A tablet, a phone, the TV. It was sad, we hadn't seen each other in months, but we were all vegged out.

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  4. The time wasted in the morning catching up on all my news feeds is the worst! I'm trying to be better lately. Last night I left my phone in the kitchen instead of bringing it downstairs to watch tv with hubby. Our friend came to stay with us and he was on his phone the whole time. It was weird. I've been really close to deleting twitter lately.

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  5. 100% agree. I will be doing this this year. Spot on, Shannon. It's so sad how much time each of us spends on our devices. Same thing happened with E and me last night - both glued to our phones. Sad sad.

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  6. Yep, I'm totally guilty of this too. On my phone before bed and as soon as I wake up. I'm trying to be better about it too!

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  7. PREACH! and when isaiah gets home i do tend to put my phone away which is exactly why every night before bed I'm scrolling through IG until i see where i last was. he's just like jimmy - asleep in a millisecond. but i lay there foreverrrrr and I'm like OH! PHONE! pft. good read!
    plus i enjoy seeing baby james when i can ;)
    xxo

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  8. Must admit, we have this problem. Actually, my and my hubby had many fights in the past and even separated because of overuse of technology (cell phone mostly), and trust issues that came along with it. We have gotten better, but often times out to eat we are on our phones, at night we are on our phones. Its sad!! I know we need to work on it, but I need to start with myself first.

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  9. This is one of my goals for 2014. My husband and I are turning off the tv and putting the phones and computers aside every night and just having family time. Our start time right now is 8pm but we plan to move this up as time goes on. We need to unplug.

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  10. I use my phone as an alarm so I bring it to bed but probably would anyways. It is my only phone and I live alone so I want it close in case of emergency. But like you I go to bed looking at it and wake up and grab it while "waking up" for a bit in bed! I love it and hate it all at once.

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  11. I have vowed this too. I am due with our 2nd child this week so I know I won't have the time to spend on my phone like I did when it was just the 1 child. I even tried to not get on my phone unless it was nap or bedtime. We are the worst at putting her to bed then playing on our phones until we go to bed. pathetic! This year I am vowing to cut that time down some.

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