Oh, Kip. How you cut straight to the heart of things.
Technology. My life revolves around it.
I read books, browse the web, send work emails, instagram, tweet and sometimes even make phone calls with my smart phone. It is attached to me always.
Any down time I have, I can be doing a various number of things on my phone.
All the time.
At any time of the day or night.
Ryan and a co-worker were talking about work and kids and how their jobs require them to work at home at night sometimes. His co-worker mentioned seeing his almost 2 year old son banging on his fake laptop with a play cellphone on his ears, yelling. It was a wake up call to him. Is that how his son sees him?
It had me thinking. How to my kids perceive me? Do they think that a small metallic instrument is more important than they are?
Colin carried around one of our old broken blackberries for awhile. It never left his side. He sees both parents, with the same phone, attached at their side as well.
Sometimes the lure of just reading another blog, or checking on something or browsing another thing is an escape. An escape from real life. It is so easy to immerse yourself in other people's lives online and not really pay attention to what is going on right around you.
Don't get me wrong here. I love feeling connected with people all over the country. I like reading about what is going on in friend's lives miles and miles away from me. I love the fact that I can respond to work emails while outside playing with the kids. It frees me from being tethered to my laptop all day. I have my mini-laptop right with me.
But when is it too much? Too much technology and not enough being present. Being there. In the moment.
The more I think about my internet and computer consumption, the more convicted I feel. I would never, ever want my kids to feel like my phone or my computer is more important than they are. That one email is not more important than one of Jack's many elaborate stories. When they think about their childhood, I do not want them to remember what style of phone I carried and brand of laptop I used!
Can I cut it out? Nope. My work revolves around it. I also keep up with family online much better. But can I be more selective, more conscious of my time spent online and away from my boys?
Is this something that you have thought about? How do you keep tabs on how much time you spend online/on your phone?
I would love to hear other people's thought and ideas on this.
1 comment:
I have thought about this a lot lately, and really started to make some boundaries with my being "hooked" up to technology & social media. it's such a big part of my life too, not so much my husband's as it is mine with the blog, facebook, etc.
Now, I really try to only blog when Ava is napping and or in bed for the evening which requires some planning on my part but totally worth it to give her the best of myself while she's awake.
Orion's in grad school right now so when he's doing homework I'll use that time when we're both on the computers to get some blogging, or facebook stuff in. but when he's done with school work, i'll be done too. shut down the computers and phones and just hang out together at night.
I feel these two things have really help me keep perspective on it. and i've really tried to stick to these guidelines for the most part. so that it doesn't become all time consuming and take over my days or nights.
sometimes you just need to unplug and take a break and that's ok.
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