As I was thinking through the thoughts
I shared last time, I was thinking through the difference between the
way we interact with technology and the way we used to interact with
newspapers or books. We've all seen the older sitcoms where a woman
would be trying to speak to her husband, but he would be hiding
behind a newspaper. He was shutting her out of his world during the
time he was reading the paper.
My dad was a pastor. He loved to read
and so he almost always had a book with him. When we'd go on
vacation, as soon as he had a chance, he would sit down somewhere in
the shade and read his book. This would sometimes perturb my mother
because she often had other ideas of what she would rather have him
do with his time, especially time she considered to be family time.
In both of these scenarios, it's
important for a husband to learn to be attentive to the needs and
desires of his wife and family. It was still possible to be withdrawn
and separated from those around us even when the technology consisted
of paper and ink.
But I've been asking myself the
question as to whether our issue today is just another version of the
same thing or is it fundamentally different. On the surface there are
some of the same issues. I can be reading the daily news on my Ipod
when my wife wants to get my attention about something. An Ipod isn't
as big as a newspaper and so she can easily see my face. Or, I can
be on vacation and when I think I have a good opportunity, I can go
off somewhere and read a book on a Kindle. Is this different or the
same as what happened in previous generations?
On another level, the two media pose
completely different circumstances that I think we as Christians need
to look at very carefully. With print media, one is normally locked
into one task. When I'm reading a book, everyone around me knows I'm
reading a book. If I decide I'd like to check on the yesterday's
sports scores, I will put down the book and go pick up the newspaper.
If my son is reading the sports page, I have to wait until he's
finished. I don't know how other people are, but very seldom, if I
had five minutes of free time between getting dressed and leaving for
work would I go find my book, pick it up, and read a page. Because I
wasn't used to so much distraction and multi-tasking, my brain didn't
think it needed to find some little thing to do during every quiet
space in the day.
How do things differ now with
technology? Let me use myself as an example. I have an Ipod Touch
that I use for just about everything except typing. I mean I can
study my Bible, check the weather, read the news, read any number of
different books, play games, text people, send out tweets, check on
Facebook, etc. Because I am older, I tend to use this tool more like
I would the device it replaces. In other words, when I read, I tend
to read it the way I would a book. Younger people tend to be much
more distracted and multi-tasking than I am. But having said that, I
have noticed some tendencies that automatically come with this type
of technology.
I may be reading my Bible and
meditating on it, but then wonder what today's weather is going to be
like. So almost in mid-sentence I may switch over and check the
weather. Then I'll wonder what the 10-day outlook is and so might
check that out. Needless to say, this breaks my train of thought. I
may be reading another book when I wonder if anyone has posted a
response to a grandchild's picture I posted on Facebook and so might
switch over there to see what's been happening. Someone there may
have referenced a cute You Tube video and so I might check that out
and chuckle as I see the inane antics of some 2 year old. Meanwhile,
the thoughts evoked by the book I was reading are long gone.
All of the previous events can take
place while I'm “reading” a text. But what about all of the other
snippets of time that are spread throughout the day? We have a
tendency to check in with the technology in almost every spare
minute. There is a draw there that was not present in the newspaper
and book. I'm not saying there is anything innately wrong about that,
but it has a pull. Can't you feel it? You have a few minutes while
your wife is putting dishes in the dishwasher and so you check out
the sports scores. She comes in the living room to find you looking
at your phone. It was just a few seconds and you found out what you
wanted to know and so you put it down. Later on there's a lull in the
conversation, if you ever got started in a conversation, and so you
check to see if anyone has updated Facebook. In a few more minutes
you remember that you had put a bid on Ebay and so you check your
email for a minute to see if there's a message there regarding your
bid. Again you set your phone aside, only to hear the familiar tone
that tells you someone has texted you. It would be rude to leave it
until tomorrow so you quickly check to see what that was about. Oh,
it was only Culver's restaurant telling you you could get a buy one
get one free Sundae on Thursday between 4 and 5 pm. That was
important, wasn't it? Through all of this you are pulled aside from
conversation with your wife or distracting you from what your
children are doing. Rather than talking to or playing with them, you
are fiddling with your phone.
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