Have we grown too fond of technology?

/**I found this unpublished post waiting...just waiting to be shared...I wrote this a few weeks ago, but never got around to posting it. Here it is!**/

Before you read anything else, let me say: I am guilty.  I am sorry.

I sometimes like to listen to a radio podcast of a show called "Science Friday" (don't make fun of me).  If you're unfamiliar with the show, they have experts come on the show and talk about a topic, then field listener calls/questions.  Recently they had a segment of the show where they talked about this very question: "Have we grown too fond of technology?"

You should listen to this. (click the listen button in the upper left corner) I think its about 25 - 30 minutes long.

The expert on this segment studied the ways that technology has affected our culture and specifically focused on the way it is affecting the children who are growing up in this world.

Some things that come up in the interview:

• Kids are afraid of having phone or face-to-face conversations and would rather text because "too much might show"
• We've seen a shift from "I have a feeling, I want to make a call" to "I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text". This shift shows that kids are becoming dependent on others to develop their own feelings and independence.
• We are so busy communicating that we don't know how to be alone with ourselves and its crippling us.
• Like food, the answer is not to remove it and avoid it, but to develop a healthy relationship with it.
• Children are complaining that technology is their competition for their parents' attention.

I find it frightening that a scientist is saying that we as a culture have "been seduced".  I don't think anyone is surprised by the problems we are seeing and noticing in kids/teens already.  I also don't believe that it is a situation beyond hope.  But its going to take a real commitment and decision to see cultural change.  I believe that this is more important than we realize.

One of my favorite quotes from BT Roberts says, "Popular sins are, to say the least, silently tolerated."  Let me break the silence.  It is not right when we allow ourselves to be distracted from communion with those who we are physically near us.  It is not right when we ignore whats happening around us because we are worried about what is happening elsewhere.  It is not fair for us to be so dependent on others for our emotional state.

If you consider yourself a healthy and emotionally secure person, please do us all the favor of shaking off the distraction.  Engage with the world around you and the people you are with.  Show love and care to others by giving them your attention and by showing interest in them.