For When You Struggle to Put Down Your Phone
Ah, the digital age! So many conveniences and excitements, right at our fingertips, brightly displayed on our screens. So much capability, and so much possibility!
And also… it’s kind of hard. There can be an out-of-control side to it all. Technology use has the power to grate your soul into a shreddy heap.
Modern life + phones + how phones impact = a big topic. It can be overwhelming. Today I want to keep it simple. Two basic lists plus some quotes with questions.
List 1. Some things that are true about me and my phone:
· I use it for so.many.things. Notes, maps, camera, calendar, music, email, budgeting, banking, texting, calling, you name it. It’s a entry into so many facets of my world.
· I keep it near or on me most of the time, and because of this I view it as kind of an extension of myself.
· I pick it up when I have a few free moments, especially in waiting times.
· I don’t like being without it, for all of the above reasons.
About these true things, let me be the first to say: there is not a darn thing wrong with any of them. They’re just descriptors of Life With Smart Phones.
List 2. Other things that are true about me and me phone:
· I sometimes check my phone more often than I want to, spend more time on it, or have trouble putting it down
· I sometimes pick up my phone when I know it would be better not to, like when I’m with my family
· I sometimes use my phone as a way to avert annoyance, like when I want to distract myself from my frustration with one of my kids (quick diversion to social media does the trick).
· I sometimes get caught in a loop on my phone, poking around from thing to thing on my phone (like email, Facebook, Instagram) just to see what’s going on.
I’ll be honest and say: the things on this second list are ones I’m not crazy about. They’re ones that provoke a bit of angst. After I do any of them, I feel a little gross on the inside and little guilty.
Maybe you can relate?
A big part of holding onto a healthy soul comes down to how we interact with our phones. They are good tools in themselves. They’re also seductive, and they hold a power that we often don’t see. When we do see it, we usually still underestimate it.
Quotes and questions
I just finished reading Sherry Turkle’s Reclaiming Conversation: the Power of Conversation in the Digital Age. It was packed with information and, equally importantly, reflections. All the italicized quotes that follow are taken from Turkle’s book. After each quote, I ask myself a pertinent question, which hopefully helps us personalize what she’s saying. Here goes:
“As we ramp up the volume and velocity of our online connections, we want immediate answers. In order to get them, we ask simpler questions; we dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters. And we become accustomed to a life of constant interruption.”
Am I training myself to only want immediate answers?
“In the midst of our great experiment with technology, we are often caught between what we know we should do and the urge to check our phones. Across generations, we let technology take us away from conversation yet yearn for what we’ve lost.”
How am I handling the often-present urge to check my phone?
“Every time you check your phone in company, what you gain is a hit of simulation, a neuro-chemical shot, and what you lose is what a friend, teacher, parent, lover, or coworker just said, meant, felt.”
When I’m with others, how often do I check my phone? When I do that, what (or who) am I losing?
“My student came to office hours to tell me that… she had been checking her phone during class time. She had been feeling guilty … She said she felt ‘compelled’ to check her messages. Why? All she could offer was that she needed to know who is reaching out to her, who was interested in her. Her formulation: ‘I need to see who wants me. We are not as strong as technology’s pull.’”
What do I do when I experience the feeling of, “I need to see who wants me”?
“We slip into thinking that always being connected is going to make us less lonely. But… it is actually the reverse: if we are unable to be alone, we will be more lonely. And if we don’t teach our children to be alone, they will only know how to be lonely.
Yet these days, so many people – adults and children – become anxious without a constant feed of online stimulation. In a quiet moment, they take out their phones, check their messages, send a text. They cannot tolerate time that some people I interviewed derisively termed ‘boring’ or ‘a lull.’ But it is often when we hesitate, or stutter, or fall silent, that we reveal ourselves most to each other. And to ourselves.”
What do I do in a quiet moment?
“Constant connection is changing the way people think of themselves. It is creating a new way of being. I call it ‘I share, therefore I am.’ We share our thoughts and feelings in order to feel whole.”
When I pick up my phone to share something, what is my deep-down motivation?
(There are more of these, but surely this is enough to start.)
What next?
These aren’t questions that have easy answers. But they’re questions we need, and if we want healthy souls we may find we need to ask them often.
Obviously just asking the questions isn’t going to be enough. We need to ask them, get honest with ourselves… and then create some action items. In short, we need a plan with some guard rails and self-control checks.
The first step, though, is to acknowledge what Turkle calls the “seductive undertow” that phones exert. We need to grow in our ability to spot it, and build up a desire to tackle it. We need the want-to to wrestle. Courage will be important in this fight, and so will prayer.
One thing I can promise you: the struggle will be worth it. For us and for our children.
Answer me this: where does your phone cause you the biggest struggle?
You May Also Enjoy:
If you like this post, please share it! For more content like it, take my free, fun QUIZ, “What’s Your Cell Phone Virtue?”
Or join us at the the susanbarico.com subscriber community, and I’ll send you my quick start guide: “5 steps to less CELL, more SOUL.” Sign up here.
