A few last thoughts regarding potential resistance in minimizing technology's distraction in our homes.
"But they'll have to know how to use technology..."
I know I will get the push-back comments about how kids have to know how to use technology in order to grow up savvy in our current culture. But if you think about it, not a single one of us had this current level of technology available to us as kids, but we figured it out when the time came. Human minds and skills appropriation are really incredible. Besides, it's silly to think technology will end up looking anything like it currently does by the time our kids are adults anyway. They'll have to figure out the available technology then, just like we did. That's the way it goes.
Knowing how to use an iPad now does not prepare them for the real world. By the time they reach adulthood, iPads will be obsolete and it will be some new contraption that I don't even care to take a guess about. But I can tell you what will best prepare them for their future: ample time to use their brains and their bodies. Ample time to entertain themselves. Ample time to read actual books and climb actual trees and actually solve actual problems. These are the kind of people who will have no problem figuring out available technology once it becomes necessary for them to do so.
So don't be afraid to give your kids breathing room, away from the tech. You won't be depriving them of anything. If anything, you'll be giving them more time to be a real-life kid, which will in turn set them up for success as a tech-savvy grown up.
Keep the good, lose the bad.
I'm clearly not arguing for a Little House on the Prairie existence. I like Googling and blogging and two-day free shipping and commercial-free episodes of Gilmore Girls as much as the next (Gilmore) guy. And even if I didn't, getting rid of technology across the board doesn't fix the problem of being a distractible person, one who finds it difficult to be mentally present with my most immediate People. Technology is not the deepest problem here - my sin is. Your sin is. But it can be the case the technology can very easily aid us in becoming more deeply ingrained in our native sin habits if we let it. So it's important to stay diligent.
Where technology facilitates our most important relationships - snuggling up to watch a movie together as a family, or using the Wi-Fi and my disconnected smartphone to email Todd videos of the kids during the day - I'm all about it. But the second it starts robbing from our relationships and our homes is when I'm the voice of one calling out in the wilderness, "Chuck that garbage out the window." Let's endeavor to have an uninterrupted conversation with those amazing people we get to call our very own. Let them have an uninterrupted conversation with us. Let's focus on the best things, even if it means having to cut back on the good things.
2 comments :
"The good is always the enemy of the best." - Oswald Chambers
All three parts are Very well said, Paige, and Todd's comments as well! Thank you for courageously putting into words what so many need to hear. Way to let God use you for His glory and for your good! It is similarities like this and many other things that makes me wish we could be friends...ah well...nice to know we aren't alone in the endeavor that constantly goes against the culture:)
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