Technology is messing us up!
Some of you may have noticed that I don’t ‘blog’ that often. Indeed, blogging is an art form in itself, (like, what on earth do I put in a blog??!)
But the social media experts seem to think that it is an essential aspect to online presence so, a few months on from the last time I did one, here’s another!
Basically, I can put what I want in a blog. So, in this one, I would like to have a bit of a rant. It is about all things techy, mainly mobile phones, tablets and how it has basically messed up our normal way of living. I feel really fortunate to have grown up in the 70’s and 80’s where all this nonsense didn’t exist.
We interacted and communicated with everyone, we spent our time outdoors as much as possible and were pretty much oblivious to what was going on for the most part, with the rest of the world. We weren’t being influenced by complete strangers who had bizarre ideas and we were able to think for ourselves.
Nothing was available unless you went to great lengths in order to find it or find out about it!
Now we have everything at our fingertips, and no one seems to be able to operate without a phone or tablet in their hands or a laptop nearby. So now we are living in a world where you cannot get someone’s undivided attention, living in such a way where we can no longer get passionate about hobbies and interests anywhere near as much as before and wasting so much time staring into the screens of these little rectangular things that seem to command control over us.
How many of us actually think about our own digital well being?? I didn’t until recently and I was alarmed at how much time I was actually spending using my phone. I’m sure most of you are aware that you can set up your phones in order to monitor and track how long and on what, we are doing with them.
My actual phone usage was not that bad where I felt there was a real issue, I averaged around 2-3 hours a day – much of that time was being spent marketing for Q.I. but a good hour was being wasted on leisurely stuff, like FB, Youtube.
The biggest problem are the kids – including my own. They are addicted to their phones. They do not want to go out, or engage in healthy activites, they don’t even want to interact with their friends face to face – it is all done online. Mental health issues in children has sky rocketed and a large part of this is dowe to what they have access to and how it is (or is not) being monitored.
I read an interesting article the other day about how children’s reading and especially writing in their free time has fallen so much that it is at crisis point – they just aren’t interested anymore, and you can guess why……or it is at least one of the reasons.
My ex-husband decided the way forward was to bombard our 9 yr old daughter with technology in the form or an ipad and iphone when I tried to tell him it was not a good idea. He did it anyway and allowed her free access whenever she went to see him at the weekend, subsequently, we now have a daughter with MH issues. I am not going into the details but suffice to say, her recovery is going to be an ongoing issue.
We cannot simply take the phones away. We have to start educating children about being sensible and responsible, limit and restrict the time and content and to hell with the tantrums. There should be a health warning on mobile phone usage, especially where kids are concerned.
We have become a society where being sociable is not how it should be – I bet you have tried to have a conversation with someone who is also looking at their phone – I know I have, and it is just plain rude. I’ve seen people falling over in the street because they are not paying attention to what they are doing because of their phone. I’ve had people walk into me because they are too busy looking at their phones and then have the audacity to look at me like it was my fault!!?
Lord only knows this will get worse if we don’t take it upon ourselves to do something about it. I began looking at my digital well being as mentioned earlier and although I felt it wasn’t too bad (there are thousands who are far worse than me) and I am pleased to say that I now think twice about whether to pick up my phone and more importantly, why. Is it because I genuinely need to, or can I leave it where it is? I have got my screen time down to 45 mins to 1 hour which I’m really pleased with. I can feel like I have not wasted my day gawping at FB or Insta and have spent my time more productively. At the moment, I feel like I’m in the minority, but I have begun training my daughter to realise that life is outside of the phone. Very slowly, I feel it’s beginning to work but there is a long way to go.
We have to accept that its all part of the technology available to us now, but it needs to form a constructive part of our lives instead of it dictating our every move.
I think I will leave it there for now, I have gone on enough. Maybe this will resonate with some of you. I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking like this.
Take care all
E x