Okay Geek Farm
Why it's important to disconnect from technology every so often
Ricardo Trejo
It’s 2011, and as each day passes, new devices are announced, reported upon, and bought that crave more and more of our time and attention. Constant connectivity to the world’s digital conscience has become a daily routine for the majority of people with savvy new mobile devices — it being the first thing they wake up to and the last thing they see before heading to sleep. Has it ever crossed your mind that you may be depending, or at least, wanting to depend on something that isn’t really real to begin with?
Looking at a phone, texting, or even the simple measure of listening to music during any given time is a means to remove yourself from the current situation you’re in, usually because you aren’t pleased with this very real life, dull moment. However, this is reality. No matter how many times you check your Facebook updates, your Twitter feed, or your email, the real life moment doesn’t disappear. It’s these moments that people are neglecting to face as truth, substituting them for more favorable conversations between people they would rather be talking to and engaging with.
Reality defined by communication
Multi-tasking Moms
In a particular episode of The Office where upgrading to newer technology is the subject matter, Regional Manager Michael Scott, played by the ever-so-talented Steve Carrel, speaks about the dangers of technology, (more so due to his fear of a robot uprising), and somewhere along the way he makes a startling revelation: “Life and business are about human connections.”
Today’s technology in its simplest form was made for the purpose of communication. But rather than using these tools to their strengths, the majority of people have taken to the digital highways looking for ways to personalize communication, enjoying only the things they want to see, read, and hear. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t drive around a school and see a mother or father fiddling with their cell phone instead of paying attention to the very real life moment of walking their kid to school. They may not realize it, but they’re losing these real life moments forever, replacing them with an empty reality of status updates, texts, and photos.
To better illustrate my point, imagine one of your friends comes to visit you while you’re in the middle of watching tv. They come in and sit down in front of you, directly in between yourself and the tv. You are now given a choice; to listen to this person intently, or detach yourself from the real life moment and look over their shoulder towards the more interesting moving pictures. While real life can at times be boring and repetitive, it’s not an excuse to neglect it, disconnecting ourselves from our real life human relationships.
Casual use vs. addiction
But don’t get me wrong, I do understand that there are countless people out there who use their technology wisely; Sharing photos with grandparents, reading important emails from work, or even listening to a song that means the world to you — there’s nothing wrong with any of this, but it’s when we place these moments and substitute the current reality for something we’d rather prefer to be enjoying or even working on, that’s when we’ve crossed a fine line.
Facebook AddictionRegardless of what sort of business or recreation you enjoy; such as Twitter, Facebook, or even various communities and message boards (4chan included), they have all become a blurred line of what real friendship and communication really are. Through all the talk, status updates, and tweets done in a day between seemingly random strangers, are there any that actually matter? Does sharing a link with your 1,000+ Twitter posse, or getting over 100 replies on your thread really make it worth the time you’ve spent checking, reading, and replying to them all?
Again, there’s nothing wrong with having a 1,000 followers on Twitter or even posting something that gets a large reaction, but what gets me is that so many people focus on obtaining that man followers. Couldn’t our energies be put to something else, especially when we have real problems to deal with everyday? Can we think about putting away the phone or turning off the computer for at least one whole day just to see how we cope without them? I’m not against technology in the least sense — I’ve been writing for T3ch H3lp for years now, and I love reading the latest news on products and what new trends are making their way up in the social realm, but every so often I have to disconnect so I don’t put too much importance on a never-ending cycle of consumerism and commercialism, which can be outright distractions.
Disconnect t3ch
At times I feel I’m partially responsible for the information I post, the articles people consume, in which sometimes the idea is promoting that your current technology is obsolete and must be replaced with this new, shinier gadget. I don’t mean to turn this into some sort of self-righteous quest to find peace in a world full of clicks, touch gestures, and ringtones; I am simply looking to help people with tech overload — a problem that most people don’t even know they have. So I’ve decided to dedicate a new line of posts in which I hope will help people to temporarily disconnect from their gadgetry, giving them time to reflect, and seeing the importance of stepping back and getting a good picture at how effectively or ineffectively they’ve been using their tech to save time or maintain the most important connection of all: the human connection.
