Technology Sabbath
By Albert B. Kelly
With the headlines out of
Ukraine and Crimea in recent days, a missing plane, along with some of the
other more prominent news stories; you may have missed the fact that March 7th
was the “National Day of Unplugging”, a 24 hour period – running from sundown
to sundown – on the first Friday in
March. It was a technology Sabbath of sorts, encouraging participants to cut
the cord on computers, cell phones, iPhones, BlackBerry’s, Facebook Twitter,
iPads, and anything else that serves as an electronic umbilical cord.
When I first came across
the “National Day of Unplugging” I was a little cynical because when you get right
down to it, we have a never ending stream of “awareness months”, National
“such-and-such” weeks, and days dedicated to every cause under the sun. We have
colors that stand for stuff; so much so that you can find pink bats in baseball
and pink cleats on NFL lineman. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m making
light of some of the more serious issues behind some of these symbols, it’s
just that I fear that the symbols can become “faddish”; crowding out the
substance behind the symbol.
Be that as it may, the
more I thought about the “National Day of Unplugging”, the more it seemed to
make sense to me. Without really trying, we’ve gone well beyond “dependent”
when it comes to technology; many having become slaves to technology. The whole
world of iPhones and tweets and texts and everything in between is literally
changing how we relate and interact with one another and with our own selves.
The surface transgressions
are small; we now have to instruct the young that its bad form and
inappropriate to read and send text messages or take phone calls during a job
interview. And it’s not just the young; we have to remind parents to pay
attention to their kids in the little time they spend with them at breakfast or
dinner. In meetings, associates and colleagues are constantly checking messages
and we’ve all had the experience of trying to carry on a serious conversation
with someone (teen child, spouse, date) only to have them grunt while their
attention is fixed on some hand-held device.
But below the surface how
we deal with the world- enter into it and exit out of it- is changing. For a
growing number of people, especially those on the younger side of life, the
primary way of interacting with others is through instant messaging or texting
or something digital and “remote”. We become “followers” on Twitter and we
“friend” or “unfriend” on Facebook. People literally sleep with their devices next
to them in the bed and there’s a growing body of evidence that some go through
withdrawal if they are disconnected for too long a period.
There’s also social media
etiquette to consider here as well; how much time can elapse in responding to a
text message before the sender gets hurt feelings; or the social angst of
blocking someone or not “friending” them- the grave offesne of not accepting an
invitation to link to some “thing” or someone when requested to do so. These
devices and those on the other end of the line as it were, demand access to us
and an immediate response- always and now- and it often comes at the expense of
the flesh and blood people right in front of us.
And while I won’t cover it
here; we’ve all heard the tragic stories about texting and car accidents or the
teen who commits suicide because of vicious bullying or degrading pictures
spread through social media. I imagine that for every tragedy that results from
digital bullying; there are a thousand others obsessing over their self-esteem because
of how many “likes” or “dislikes” they’ve received in the last week.
But shifting back to how
social media has changed the landscape and why “unplugging” every now and again
has value; we would do well to remember that on a “people basis”, the whole
social media-digital universe gives us the illusion of having a relationship
without the very real demands of friendship, let alone genuine fellowship. And
in the world at large for the socially-minded, it lets people pretend to
support or belong to some broad movement or big cause (the Arab Spring and
Occupy Wall Street come to mind), without having to put any appreciable skin in
the game.
All of this is to say that
when I took a second glance at the National Day of Unplugging-this “technology
Sabbath”-I think it is a good and necessary thing; if for no other reason than
to force us to consider the role of this stuff in our daily lives, how we
relate to our devices, but mostly how we relate to people or avoid people,
through our devices.
Indeed, as the organizers
behind the unplugging said; “we increasingly miss out on the important moments
of our lives as we pass the hours with our noses buried in our iPhones and BlackBerry’s,
chronicling our every move through Facebook and Twitter and shielding ourselves
from the outside world with the bubble of “silence” that our earphones create”.
It’s strong stuff to consider, but it’s true.
A Sabbath, even a
“technology Sabbath” is a good thing; a time of rest, a time to reflect and go
inward; an opportunity to plumb our own depths and think things through without
distraction. Such a Sabbath lets us plan rather than simply react: it lets us
savor a moment, absorb our surroundings, and consider where we are in our
lives. And if all that fails to do it for you, then at least a technology
Sabbath lets us string a few hours of uninterrupted sleep together and maybe that
alone makes “unplugging” worth its weight in gold.