Sometimes I think about the world our children will grow up in and it terrifies me. My only hope is that because they have parents from a generation that was on the cusp of this digitalized world that they will learn from us a life without constant connection. When we look around today all we see are others hidden behind the technology. Texting versus calling. Remember the days you had phone numbers memorized and you sometimes would play in the cord as you chat with your friends. Our kitchen cord was so long and distracting. Or the days when your cell phone was so clunky and embarrassing you tried hard to not have to use it. It was kept in a glove box for emergencies. I will admit it’s convenient to have an email in your hand at a moment’s notice, but we survived without it and now that cell phones have the ability to do anything we as people have become dependent on them for everything. Google Maps. I used to love flipping through our big book of state maps and helping find our way to wherever we were going! Now you can plug in your destination and not have to think twice about it. Calculators, kids whip out their cell phones so fast to think about giving change back if the register stopped working. Back in the day, we did this fancy technique called counting change back. Distracta-aps. Road trips no longer consist of magazines, I spy, road bingo, or crossword puzzles. They now consist of iPads or built-in TVs into cars (seriously) or your phone all of which have apps full of distractions. If I look into the lobby where I work every person in the cafe has a laptop and a cell phone out on their table and no one is sitting with someone else unless in a meeting otherwise they are alone and making eye contact with no one. People used to be sitting at tables reading newspapers and talking with their neighbors about current events.
This digital world has created this sense of urgency with the mindset of everything is at my fingertips. It’s created a culture of impatience. And impatient people tend to carry a short fuse. There is a lot more anger in the world we live in now and I think technology has a large part to play in that. I’m not saying we shouldn’t grow and we shouldn’t evolve. I’m just saying we shouldn’t depend on it so much. We can grow and evolve while still holding onto the core of who we are. We used to be a civilization that connected with one another verbally. That took time to get outdoors and explore, that played games outside or inside that required thought. We went to the library to look up information, we used the people in our lives for guidance for conversation for second opinions. Everything we used to do took connection and human interaction. Now this digitalized world has everything in one tiny device where we can avoid all human contact if we chose.
I understand that the internet is good the irony is not lost that I’m writing this blog from my phone in our living room as my husband puts our kids to bed. But that is just it-it’s good. It’s not God, and with the way, people use the digitalized world these days they are giving it more time than all else in the world. I will own up to the fact I’ve been one of those people more often times than I’d like to admit. But my prayer is that I can break that cycle. It’s why I’m here writing on it tonight. I’d read an article the other day that got me thinking about life and raising children. And then I thought about a common poem from my young adult years working at a youth camp. It was called a little fellow follows me. And children watch us closer than I think we believe they do. And so they’ll grow to make our habits their own. So what kind of future adult do you want to create?
Lord help me to leave this digitalized world by my bedside when I wake, help me to get back to life in the present happening right in front of my eyes. Help me to be an adventurous child for my children before they are no longer children.
