Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, email, text messages, all tools designed to keep you connected. We even give them the name of “social.”
But are we really being social when we’re using these tools?
As a society we’ve seen a massive increase in the use of social media and electronic communications. And the reality is that they are important tools for communication and business. People use them every day to be more productive and stay connected with family and friends around the world that they would not otherwise be able to do.
The problems come when we are unable to disconnect with our phones and connect to our world around us. And I’m writing this from personal experience in hopes that others will read and hopefully understand all that they are missing.
My daughter was born in 2003, the heart of the cell phone boom. I, like almost everybody I knew, had a cell phone that was only able to send and receive phone calls and text messages. And I spent as much of my waking time interacting with my child as I could.
But then, one day, I decided that it was time for me to get an IPhone. Possibly the worst mistake of my life. As I began to use it more and more I started to spend less and less time interacting with my daughter and more time reading email, surfing the web, and playing “social” games.
And our relationship suffered. A lot.
She would come to me wanting to play, or read, or just be together. I would set my phone down and give her my attention… for about 3 minutes. Because then my phone would beep alerting me of something that “needed my immediate attention.” Of course, it didn’t need my immediate attention.
She did.
And she began to think that whatever was on that screen was more important than she was and would walk away, eventually never coming back. But I just didn’t see it at the time.
Often times when we think of families who suffer because of addiction, we immediately think of alcohol or drugs. Of the abusive parent who gets drunk and screams at their spouse. Or passes out at the ball game.
But addiction goes much deeper than that.
I was an IPhone addict. And it was destroying my family.
I would sit in the corner for hours staring at my phone. I would miss her performances because I was staring at my phone. I would miss watching her grow up because I was staring at my phone. I would miss interacting with her because I was staring at my phone. Sometimes I would try to hide the fact that I missed something because I was staring at my phone.
And it breaks my heart every time I think about all the memories that I’ll never have because I was staring at my phone. My eyes are tearing up as I write this now.
But that’s not even the worst part.
Just as many children of alcohol and drug addicted parents become addicts as well. So do children of IPhone addicted parents.
Today my child is an IPhone addict...
...and it’s my fault.
Hi, I'm Forest
I teach people how to kick ass for a living. You can read my story and verification post here.