I have a love-hate relationship with technology. I love that I can FaceTime my family across
the nation and keep in touch and actually see
them when we are talking now! If you
have family that lives far away you understand my joy in seeing everyone’s
faces. I grew up in the Bay Area and
live in Tennessee now with no move in sight so I try my best to visit and make
sure my baby knows her grandparents and my side of the family.
That’s the good side about technology – that you can keep in
touch through video calls, phone calls, emails and texts. I prefer talking but sometimes emails or text
messages have to do.
The bad – well let’s just say there are quite a few reasons
I don’t like technology.
1)
Technology can get in the way of actual
face-to-face relationships. Now when I
go to restaurants or out in public I like to look around at other diners and
see who is actually engaging and talking with their companions and who is
sitting on their phone. I have seen
people who have 4-5 people at one table eating “together” and everyone will be
on their phone not even talking to each other!
In this way, I think technology is a barrier to relationships and we
need to put the phones or tablets down and learn to talk with one another
without multitasking. I’ve read multiple
studies stating that America is one of the loneliest nations and I think technology
contributes.
2)
I feel like technology has aided in my mental
laziness. Remember when we were kids and
had to memorize our friend’s phone numbers?
I actually still have them all memorized! I can tell you at least a dozen phone numbers
from friends in high school before I got a cell phone in college. I don’t even know my parent’s cell phone
numbers because I just push the button.
That’s sad. I still have a good
memory, but definitely not as good as I did.
Whether that’s from getting older or from not using it as much (we can
google everything now if we don’t know the answer), I couldn’t tell you, but I
know it’s true.
3)
People pay less attention when they drive making
the roads more frightening than ever. I
never liked driving to begin with. I
think it was mostly because there was always traffic at home, but now all of
the people on their phones while driving scare me. I have Bluetooth in my car so I’ll talk on
the phone while driving but I don’t text and drive. I put the phone across the car in my bag and
it syncs with the Bluetooth automatically so I never have to touch my phone to
answer it when someone calls or I want to call someone. There are thousands of car accidents every
day and the stats are astounding for the amount of people who still text and
drive even though research and life show that it’s super unsafe. I do use my phone for GPS and directions when
going to a new place and unfortunately that has made it so I don’t learn the
directions to get places as well. I am
working on trying to figure out how to get there before I go when I am driving
so that I don’t have to look down at my phone for directions and don’t get lost
as often. I made it across the nation
with a paper AAA map when I first moved out to Virginia back in 2007. People were surprised to find out I didn’t
have a GPS while I road tripped across the nation and again to the Mid West ball parks in 2008 (though they really shouldn’t have been surprised since I didn’t get texting until May 2010).
I think the take home story here
is to use technology to your advantage.
When you can save time with it or money like coupons or an app (like
CartWheel at Target!), do it. Use it to
stay in contact with your family and friends who are far away. However, we need to put the phone down when
we are with people in person and spend time with those we love when we can
because they won’t always be there.
Those little moments are what I live for – playing with the baby and
seeing her delight and excitement when she discovers something for the first
time (like my nose!). Hanging out with
friends and actually talking to them without distractions from phones or what
not. Use them for emergencies. Honestly, I’m no doctor on call whom people
need to access 24/7, so I can leave my phone in my bedroom all night and nobody
will know I didn’t have it in my hand. I
want to be a good example to my daughter that people are more important and it’s
okay to be ‘bored’ sometimes and not constantly have our minds stimulated by a
little colorful screen.
Who’s with me?
-run for life
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