My life is definitely too complex. I am constantly checking email, facebook, twitter, text messages, smoking signals, skywriting, etc. I am so busy with these tasks that many other, more important tasks go undone. So I'm thinking of some ways to simplify my life.
One of the things I am seriously considering is getting rid of my cell phone. Not only would this give me more time to myself (solitude and contemplation are two goods currently missing in my life), but it would also save Janelle and I money each month. I'm also thinking of getting rid of twitter and facebook. Of course I can hear all of my tech-saavy, marketing friends, "How will you ever stay relevant? How will you keep up with your friends and what's going on in their lives? How will you push your apologetics ministry?" Well, my apologetics ministry is virtually non-exist right now so I'm not too worried about that one. I'll still have my blog which will be an outlet for my ministry ideas and thoughts. Staying relevant isn't that difficult because I won't give up the internet. I'm just giving up two of the websites that suck most of my time. I'm not the guy that has tons of self-control and can keep to a schedule. The best course of action, for me, might be to ditch the whole thing. As some dude said, "Know thyself." As far as staying in touch with my friends, I guess I'll have to do it like I did in 1995. I have a home phone with a voicemail. I also have an email account (something I didn't have in 1995). I'll just check my email and voicemail at night when I get home and return phone calls. Also, this would give me a great excuse to meet with people face-to-face which I like doing way more than I like talking on the phone.
Anyway, this isn't a rant against technology. Technology is amazing and I love it! Technology's awesomeness is part of the reason I'm in this situation right now. In my case, technology has added to my happiness (in the Aristotelian sense), but it seems to have taken much more than it has added.
I know you have been waiting my response . . .
ReplyDeleteI actually believe that it would be awesome if you received messages by smoke signals.
Here's my question: Is the technology at fault? This is not a criticism of you personally, but people feel [or at least seem to feel] this urgency to respond to every single thing on these silly sites. Why is that? If someone calls you [again, the impersonal you, not you leroy] on the phone and you can't talk, then you don't answer it. And sometimes you don't get back to them for awhile [sometimes it even takes them calling a second or third time].
I have, as an act of virtue [haha], opted out of all 'social' [which is largely a misnomer, if not entirely] network sites. I have seen them cause a lot more harm than good for people who are 'actual' friends. People ruining decent, not perfect, friendships for some very petty reasons. Some of these could easily have been caused by the pettiness of the people themselves, so it is not these sites themselves but how most people use them that is at fault.
Of course, everyone reading this will say, "But I use them for their intended purpose." Of this, I am quite skeptical. I am sure that many people use these things 'some' of the time in respectable ways. But I am also sure most people use these things is poor ways some of the time.
For the record, I am also not against technology; I love it to an extent. But I am firmly against our obsession with it.
Dude I did not know you were blogging again! Maybe if you answered my phone calls/exts/tweets you could have told me hahaha. I am one the edge of dumping most of these things as well. It's just too easy to be interrupted and I have little self control as well.
ReplyDeleteI think a bigger issue for me though is expectations. There are expectations of conduct when joining any group. E.G., if you become a Southern Baptist you don't HAVE to go to potlucks, but you'll be in some sort of social trouble if you don't! Same with "joining" FB, Twitter, getting email, voicemail, texts, etc. If you have email and I send you an email I expect a response, same with voicemail, tweets, texts, pokes, and all the other available crap. The only way to not risk offending someone by not responding is to not be able to be reached in 54 different ways. Heck, the only tech savvy thing I don't do is text and I get them every week anyway. So that's an issue for me is that by putting myself out there I feel obligated to interact.
Not only do I often times feel obligated to response, write, call back, etc., but I've had people tell me that I am obligated to do these things. In other words, it's not just a matter of my feelings, but there is a real obligation there. But I think I'm with Spike on this one. I don't think the obligation is legit though I have yet to figure out why.
ReplyDelete