Our New Addiction

I can’t help but feel like everywhere I go I am staring at the top of people’s heads. Forget cigarettes, or cocaine even, the thing that most people can’t go very long without is their phone. Not only are we obsessed with our phones, but we feel we must let our children in on the addiction, too. 1/5 of third graders now own a cell phone and close to half of 5th graders do.

Why do we love our phones so much? They are a constant friend that gives us companionship without us having to do any work to upkeep the relationship. Our phone won't get mad at us, has no expectations of us, and is at our beckon call - and we have to do absolutely nothing for it. The sad thing is that the people God has placed in our lives for us to nurture, invest in, and build up, get the shaft because we are expending most of our attention to our blissful relationship with our iPhone screen. A comedian recently stated: When deciding who you are going to marry, think long and hard if this is the person you want to watch stare at their phone the rest of your life.

The internet took us by surprise many years ago, but now there is so much information out there on how to monitor computer usage and help our kids not fall prey to predators or inappropriate website content. Many families have a family computer rule where the computer is in an open location for accountability. Many even have home filtering systems. However, it seems like now that just like how the internet took us by surprise, smartphones with internet access have come in through the backdoor of our common sense.

Our phones are wonderful in so many ways because they have erased the need to have many other resources around. I don’t have to look for a calculator when I need to add up many numbers. I don’t have to have a separate alarm clock. I don’t need pen and paper to make a grocery list because I have an app for that. Because it is so wonderful, we constantly need it at our immediate disposal. Because we constantly need it, we are extremely dependent on it. It may be the most important resource we have, and we are training our children to be just as dependent on it as we are.

What if we used common sense with our phones? What if we limited how often we checked it or even turned it off for longer periods? What if we didn’t give our young children a loaded gun by sending them off with open access to the internet with no accountability? What if we put limits on our availability to our phone, and opened the floodgates of communication and interaction with those we love? Their value is so much greater than the latest app on our phone. Our children’s well-being is so much more valuable than them being cool. Our relationship with our spouse is more important than what was last tweeted.

I believe our phones are a way of escape from reality. We escape our responsibilities. We escape growth. We escape our pain. We escape our very real world and needs, and get lost in a fake, disconnected, picture perfect world.

I am the kind of person that needs boundaries for myself. If you need those kinds of boundaries, consider noting the time whenever you put your phone down to hold yourself accountable for the amount of time you wait before you pick it up again. You can give your child “phone breaks” in this way, too.

Psalm 127:1a

Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted.

Instead of spending so much time building up your online world, why not allow the Lord to work through you to build up the relationships and goals in your very real world? Your posts will be long forgotten but the people you touch around you will not forget the way you spent time with them, cared for them, or made them feel with your real interactions.

Father God, the internet and smart phones is no new thing to You. You are very well aware of all that goes on with them. Please give me the wisdom to put first things first and to prioritize my life right. Please help me to limit my time in a fake, online world, and use my time wisely as You work through me to build up the very real life You have given me. Please help me to have wisdom with my children and their phone usage. Please give my spouse wisdom in making decisions for our children and their phones and tablets.

#iphones