Can you easily switch off when you go on vacation? I was listening to a talk show on the radio in my car yesterday and this was the topic. There seemed to be a 50/50 divide among those who could and couldn’t. What was more interesting was whether or not people thought it was positive or negative that you can now be glued to your iPhone/Blackberry 24/7. I have to admit that despite my own gadget addiction, I’ve derived great satisfaction from pointing the finger at people who are extremely addicted to their iPhones – you know the family that sit around the pool on vacation tapping away on their devices, or the moms who I watched manically texting away between scene changes at my daughter’s school play. That being said, I fully realize that I probably need to take the plank out of my own eye before judging others, because honestly, it’s really hard to tear myself away.
One of the things I heard on the radio show was a number of moms saying how because of technology, they could now run a business and attend their kid’s sports events/plays etc, rather than being an absentee parent – Ouch, bad me for pointing the finger at those manically-texting women – for Goodness sakes, they were just trying to hold together their business while being there for their children. But what about the family around the pool? Maybe they needed to run their business on vacation, especially in this job market, when someone back home may be chomping at the bit for their job, but what kind of a message are we sending to our kids?
The one thing that keeps my iPhone firmly in my pocket or in the bottom of my purse, is my daughter. She’s grown up in a generation of twittering texters, and it’s minutes before I’m going to lose her to a device which, will have her floating far away from me in cyberspace. The more she sees me tapping away (incidentally my husband says I’ll never get thumb strain as I’m so slow,) the more she’ll do the same as soon as she gets her hands on one. If my husband and I model that it’s okay to disconnect from each other whenever we want, we’re headed for trouble. So, hard as it is not to check my texts or send a quick tweet, I remind myself that my time with her is precious and that there’s nothing more loving than being fully present.
On the other hand, technology has made parenting easier for so many moms. If you’ve got 3 or 4 kids on a long, long car trip, there are now some excellent Apps, which will keep your little ones happy for hours. Much as I love to romanticize the “I Spy” games we played on those interminable car trips as a child, they got really tedious, and my brother and I always wound up teasing and fighting each other. I wonder if we’d each had an iPad if that would have made a difference. Annoying as it was for my long-suffering mom in the front, maybe we learned things about boundaries and communication that we would have never learned had we been switched off from each other – hmm.
The internet is a bottomless pit and once I get drawn down the tunnel, it’s hard to come back. How many times have I screeched to my husband while googling, “Ill just be a minute” and 20 minutes later, I’ve barely scratched the surface of whatever vital piece of information I’m trying to find. Answering emails and deleting junk mail can be almost as time consuming, so I’ve come to understand that there’s one solution for me – TIME MANAGEMENT.
I have had to learn to become so structured with my time. This is the only way that I can control the internet, rather than have it control me. I plan ahead on my calender an exact time window for either answering emails, researching something, answering texts, and checking my FB page. When the time is up, whatever it is get’s turned off so I can turn my attention to being creative. The only way I was able to write my books, was to have this structure firmly in place.
The one thing that we don’t get to experience while being “switched -on” to our devices, is that wonderful feeling of being truly present. I don’t know about you, but when I’m doing something that I really love like creative writing, cooking, and gardening, I enter what I call “the zone.” Time stands still and I forget about anything that’s bothering me, as I’m so involved, so present with what I’m doing. Being on line is the polar opposite – Yes, I lose track of time but instead of slowing down, my mind is manically multitasking. Have you ever felt deeply relaxed after sitting for a few hours at your computer? As useful and life-changing as this kind of technology now is, I believe it robs us of this precious “zone” time.
It all comes down to balance. Being such a black & white girl, I’ve spent my life learning (albeit rather slowly,) that balance is the optimal place to strive for in every area of my life, because extremes are always harmful. Managing my time wisely in terms of when I switch of all my devices, is a huge part of finding that balance.
I was at the DMV last week to renew my driving license. I was dreading this appointment, as I predicted that I’d be in line for hours – so much so, that I kept postponing it. I sat down with a ticket saying I was number 0099 in line and realized they were calling out number 0015 -Ugh. I settled in my lovely comfy plastic chair and reached into my purse for my iPhone. As I grasped it I suddenly realized that I probably had about 45 precious minutes of my life to wait. Did I want to spend it peering into a device that I had only checked minutes before, or did I want to do something more relaxing? I decided to switch if off and spent a good 20 minutes meditating, and another 30 minutes reading a book that I never ever have time to read. When my number came up, I was almost annoyed at having to interrupt myself. Leaving the DMV, I felt deeply relaxed.
How about you – when do you switch off? Have you managed to switch off on vacation this year, or do you plan to? I think the most important thing I learned from my DMV experience is that some of the time we have a choice, and that pulling ourselves away from the knee-jerk reaction of “switching-on” can lead to deeply satisfying experience.
Sophie, thank you so much for this blog! Today’s time has transformed us into an instant gratification society that always must be online and wired. While I appreciate that the internet has made life easier in a lot of ways for us, it also has taken precious time away from face-to-face contact and silent time for us.
I am not a parent but I know it would kill me if my child grew up feeling like I never made time for them or was never around because “mommy was always on the computer or her cell phone”. We as a society need to get back to the basics. We made it just fine without computers for hundreds of thousands of years. We will be just fine with limiting out contact with technology just a little bit.