It’s time to take a step back from the technology age and get back to basics. Turn off your smart watches. Delete most apps from your smart phone and get back in touch with life.
Because of technology, life changing advances have been made in medicine, agriculture and education. The sharing of ideas, discoveries, and inventions in real time has become a game changer in life. It can and has saved lives. Wireless capabilities have allowed people to communicate with others around the world. That should not change.
What should change is the time we spend on our devices. The number of devices we have should be reduced and we need to start canceling subscriptions to online services. Some of you think I am crazy; you might be correct. Here are some items that are connected to technology and wireless systems we need to stop using:
● Smart watches
● Smart appliances
● Alexa or Google home
● IPad or phones for kids. All kids until 15 or 16.
Turn off notifications on all social media apps
Is your world so busy, or important that you have to be able to text, call, or check your messages from your watch without picking up your phone? Do you know how I know we can live without this one, we have for decades before so called smart watches came out.
Smart appliances have to be the biggest scam. If you are too damn lazy to pick up a pen and paper to write down something for your shopping list, or actually open the refrigerator up to see what’s inside -then you might be too far gone and need to re-evaluate your life.
Alexa speakers and Google home have been all the rage for a while. You have a device that is connected to the largest retailer in the world. It can connect all parts of your home. All because you are too lazy to get up off the couch and turn off a light, play some music, or call someone. You are at home, this is not convenience, it is laziness. Learn the difference.
Generations of people have been successfully raised by not giving them a device to keep them occupied and quiet. Stop giving your kids games, electronics, iPad, and smart phones to keep them glued to a screen. The long-term effects are proving to be extremely harmful and people do not know how to communicate or talk to others.
Having a smart phone is almost the only option on wireless phone service these days. Do yourself a favor, turn off all the notifications on your phone. Put your phones down at dinner or leave it in another room. When visiting with people, keep it in your pocket and don’t pull it out at all.
We, as a society, have allowed the dumbing down of ourselves. We have allowed technology to take over our lives. We have allowed it to teach a generation of people what their parents should have taught them in real life with personal connection and time well spent.
There are many great advances in technology that we need to celebrate. Agriculture and the medical field are just a couple of examples. I hesitate on education because a book, pen, and paper have taught the greatest minds we have seen in a lifetime, but nonetheless education on a device is where we are in a society. The availability to self teach through online programs as an adult is truly remarkable. Technology is great for advancement of new ideas and sharing of those ideas. It is great for learning new skills and trades. I don’t know that it has helped teach kids to actually learn more. There will always be outliers in life and situations. What I am talking about here is a generation of kids that don’t even know how to write in cursive or fill out a blank check. Once we have generations of kids that lose the ability to effectively communicate with pen and paper, we will end up losing a lot more when they are adults. The reason is learning to write is a skill set that is taught at an early age. That trains young people’s minds to use their hands and eyes and brain all at the same time. It’s almost the next evolutionary stage from crawling to walking and so on.
We have to learn to turn off our electronic lives. Teach your children, and yourself, how to read an analog clock. Teach your children to color with pencils and crayons, not on a device. Teach yourself to not be on your phones or devices when around others. Teach your children the art of cursive writing and sending letters in the mail. Do it so your future self will thank you. Take time to slow down your life and appreciate the beautiful world we live in, without your head down looking at your devices.
As many will not throw away their smart devices. We can turn a lot of them off, even train our children to not be addicted to them, the process will be rough, but it is necessary in life. We have to take back our lives and the simplicity of being humans. We have to make a difference in our world - and I don’t mean by becoming TikTok or Instagram famous. Make a difference by being present, seeing how you can help others, using your God given skills to make someone else’s life better. More times than not, all of that is by stepping away from our devices and talking to someone face to face.
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso
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