Thanks to a tweet from @mattchandler74 I decided to follow his lead and take a social media sabbatical during Holy Week. Not only was it a good break but I had noticed recently that my left hand would twitch quite often. This made me think I might be holding my phone a little too much. Add that to the times recently when my 7 year old has asked, "are you done with your phone yet", I realized maybe I need a break.
It is remarkable how much time we spend on our phones. The majority of that time is not on the phone talking to a human but checking our email, Twitter, Facebook, and the Internet. These things in and of themselves are not bad but as we look further into how much time we spend looking at these things we start to see where our priorities are. I don't have scientific research and reports here to share. Please allow me to share a few of my personal experiences and think about your personal use. I hope this is helpful for us all.
My phone allows my work to consume me.
If I do not INTENTIONALLY put the phone down and away when I walk in the door from a day of work then I never actually arrive home fully to my family. I realized that when I walk in the door and continue to check email and answer phone calls it feels like I am still at work to my family. While my work may be important it should not take priority over my time with my wife and my son. They need me to BE HOME when I get home. Putting the phone down is difficult for all of us. We like to feel needed and checking our phone makes us feel good. We are constantly checking our email to make sure we are on top of things or up on the latest report at work. However, we must remember that we are Husband and Dad to our families and when we are with our family work can wait. This is extremely difficult for a lot of people but we must be laser focused on our priorities and INTENTIONALLY set aside our time with our families so that our work does not define and control us.
Twitter feeds my ego.
I am a Twitter addict. Who here can testify? Like a smoker or an alcoholic needs that smoke or tat drink many of us go looking for the latest update or notification to see who followed us, retweeted our last pithy tweet or favorited our blog post. Taking a week away from Twitter really made me feel like I was in the dark. I did not miss Facebook but there were times I found myself yearning for a twitter fix. What's the latest news, score, blog post? I use Twitter for work purposes as well and I almost rationalized to myself that I needed to get on to see what was happening. However, taking a week away did allow me to spend more time reflecting on Holy Week and it kept my mind focused during a short work week. I did feel like I had less clutter in my brain and that was a good thing. Twitter has alot of good content and depending on who you follow it can be a great resource. But if you follow the wrong people it can just become an endless gossip column and waste of time. After this sabbatical I realized that I can use Twitter better by focusing my time and reducing the number of times I check Twitter. I will be Strategic and Intentional with Twitter. For me that means not checking it constantly and maybe weeding out some of the Twitterers that do not contribute to my experience on Twitter.
Our children are being raised in a different world. The world of social media is constantly changing how we communicate. I pray that we as parents and more importantly as Christians do not allow the social media world to raise our kids but that we will Intentionally raise our children showing them the right priorities and be an example for them to follow. I hope they follow our example before they follow us on Twitter.
