It has an off button too.
Last night I became the proud new owner of a 4G android smartphone. It is shiny and fast and has access to so many apps that I feel like I'm in the electronic version of a candy store. My husband used it to stream an episode of a tv show. I added facebook and twitter feeds.
And yet, I also found myself becoming oddly concerned. As a child, the internet, phone and television were things that played very small roles in my life, yet I did not feel deprived. Now, more than ever, it seems that I live my life from one screen to the next. I work as a web designer. I game on a pc and on consoles. I maintain a social life via facebook, chat, and email. I tweet, journal, blog, and post booklists to Shelfari. I watch youtube and movies with friends. I shop. All in front of a screen.
I have this fear, and it seems so close to becoming a reality, that if you were to disconnect us from our screens too long, we would discover that we had forgotten how to live. How to connect with most people on more than the most basic level. How to entertain ourselves. How to create and think.
I find it ironic that I'm posting these thoughts to a blog. Which leads me to my point. This evening, after work, I made a conscious decision to take a break from screens. I came home, left the laptop closed, the t.v. off, put down the shiny new phone. And for four and a half hours I went screen-free. I read. I reveled in quiet. I contemplated all I could do with so much "free" time. I sat and just followed thoughts that ambled through my mind. And now, I feel like I've stopped to breathe for the first time in a long while. I have ideas again, free from behind the screens that were hiding them. And I'm ready to bring something to the tech, rather than just well letting it bring things to me.
So if you feel like your creativity, your ideas, some part of your mind or soul is gasping for air, give it some. Expand into that strange, beautifully rendered environment that exists outside your screens. Be brave, press the off button, just for a while, and take a breath.
And yet, I also found myself becoming oddly concerned. As a child, the internet, phone and television were things that played very small roles in my life, yet I did not feel deprived. Now, more than ever, it seems that I live my life from one screen to the next. I work as a web designer. I game on a pc and on consoles. I maintain a social life via facebook, chat, and email. I tweet, journal, blog, and post booklists to Shelfari. I watch youtube and movies with friends. I shop. All in front of a screen.
I have this fear, and it seems so close to becoming a reality, that if you were to disconnect us from our screens too long, we would discover that we had forgotten how to live. How to connect with most people on more than the most basic level. How to entertain ourselves. How to create and think.
I find it ironic that I'm posting these thoughts to a blog. Which leads me to my point. This evening, after work, I made a conscious decision to take a break from screens. I came home, left the laptop closed, the t.v. off, put down the shiny new phone. And for four and a half hours I went screen-free. I read. I reveled in quiet. I contemplated all I could do with so much "free" time. I sat and just followed thoughts that ambled through my mind. And now, I feel like I've stopped to breathe for the first time in a long while. I have ideas again, free from behind the screens that were hiding them. And I'm ready to bring something to the tech, rather than just well letting it bring things to me.
So if you feel like your creativity, your ideas, some part of your mind or soul is gasping for air, give it some. Expand into that strange, beautifully rendered environment that exists outside your screens. Be brave, press the off button, just for a while, and take a breath.
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