One of the biggest trouble spots for many young parents, is the balancing act between the attention we give our children and the people in our lives and the attention we give our devices.
It’s tricky because the software on our devices is designed to be addictive. No question about it. So our attention is being sought after 24 hours a day by one notification or another.
Do you ever have a day that you feel you have been completely led around by the nose by demanding notifications for seemingly important texts and emails and social media in general? It can be coming out of a trance-like feeling when you disengage and recognize that a large amount of time has lapsed since you decided to look at one little thing and that one little things led to 50 other little things.
It’s like driving distracted. You cover the length of a football field physically in the time it takes you to glance down and see something on your phone, and as your attention shifts to the phone, you don’t know what has happened around your vehicle during that distance. It’s an eerie feeling. {Thank heaven for the safety apps now available that put phones to sleep while you’re driving!}
Driving distracted/living distracted. They’re the same thing. In a young family, looking at your phone for 10 minutes can mean a child has wandered off or eaten a quart of ice-cream or written out the ABC’s on the wall or something with far worse consequences. It’s like life is speeding by and your loss of focus means you’ve traveled a proverbial football field in between attending to the present and getting sucked into something online.
So a few ideas:
Park it. Find a place where your phone can stay for awhile while you are attending to that to which you decide to attend. Research is showing that even having your phone on the counter by you is a distraction, even before it makes any noise, so find a place to park it where it won’t be calling to you or vying for your attention in any way.
I heard a young mother wisely say that during the time she is helping her children in the morning until lunchtime, her phone is put away. Then, she has time when they are napping to spend a certain amount of time returning texts or corresponding. {Kudos to you Rene‘!}
The average person checks a personal device every 6 minutes of every day. That is a horrific number of distractions for those who want to engage in learning, reading, teaching, talking, listening, practicing, working or any other endeavor that is necessary for personal and family growth!
I’m convinced that one of the biggest and best decisions we can make in our day is that of being an agent to act, not to be acted upon by the creators of technology that are extremely good at capturing our time and attention and guiding us into thinking about and acting on whatever it is they are selling. Not only that, but consider the fact that our brains are being literally rewired to have itty-bitty attention spans. That is exactly the opposite of what I want for myself and for my family!
Decide when and where and how you will act concerning your devices. Write your plan out. Tell someone else about it. Commit to it. Then follow-through. Report to your someone. Be supportive to them.
We don’t have time to waste. Life is a big juicy treat and so many people, young and old, are missing it!
Commit to engaging with real life in real time with real people. Then you’ll have relationships to show for it at the end of the day, the month, a year and a lifetime.
All my best to you!
Love,
Jacque