I was watching the audience at my grand daughters high school choir concert. Like me, the parents and grand parents were not paying attention to their kids. Without exception they were focused on their cell phones! They were emailing, face-booking, tweeting or on an app. Some were reading the news, weather or sports or a book. I thought, “Who are we kidding? We no longer attend our kid’s sporting events or school concerts to encourage them. Instead we are catching up with our on-line world.
I think we will pay a huge price for this drift into chronic preoccupation. It is so totally anti-relational and yet it feels relational. After all we are staying in touch with people by “liking” their latest posts…right? We hate it when our children are preoccupied with their electronic networking, because we feel them drawing away from us. But when it’s us doing the same thing, we justify it by cloaking our distracted-ness with good intentions.
Don’t you wonder how God sees what’s happening? Certainly he is used to being ignored by most of his human creatures most of the time. I suspect He doesn’t like it any better than we do. Wouldn’t it be radical and revolutionary if we simply got absorbed and preoccupied with His Word and communication (prayer) with Him?
Smart Phones are great tools. I’m certainly not going to toss mine in the trash. But, I want a desperate preoccupation that’s goes after a vertical relationship not merely horizontal ones.
I even talked with my granddaughter a few Christmases ago when I ran into her and her friend in a store and she spent the time on the phone instead of paying attention to this friend she hadn’t seen in a while. I pointed out how the friend could have felt uncared about, ignored, not important, etc., and that messages and calls unless really important shouldn’t be done when with others, at the dinner table, restaurants, etc. And I’ve seen husbands and wives both talking on the phone while in a restaurant together…maybe to each other, but probably not. I do worry about today’s relationships.
We already lost a lot with not seeing someone to talk to them any longer because of the phone, not sending live, written letters because of email, and now of course, you don’t even get to hear a person’s voice because people prefer texting which I admit is easier, however, we miss so much. I realize part of it is the fact that we are all far too busy, but I believe when it comes to family especially we need to stop and change things so we have quality time with them. I also believe in spite of having all these cool, easy ways to communicate with others, we are lonelier people than ever before.