This past weekend we held our first electronics sabbath. We've been meaning to for a while now but kept getting distracted from doing it (and if that isn't irony I'm not sure what is). Yesterday I talked about the decline of many things in light of social media and smart phones. You might want to read my thoughts there to give you better insight into what I'm saying here.
We instituted a no electronics sabbath from sundown to sundown. A 24 hour period in which we literally shut down and/or powered off our phones and computers. We did still allow the Wii and limited TV (as in 1 movie). We gave our redheads a few hours warning so they could frantically text their friends to tell them about the cruel and unusual punishment we were dealing. :) I let it be known in Facebook land that I wouldn't be around (not like I was missed or anything) and at sundown we powered off and let our electronics get a little rest themselves. We got milkshakes to "soothe" ourselves and the oldest tried a facial mask. The first little sting of no electronics hit when she wanted to take a picture of her masked face and I couldn't find my real camera. We powered on my phone for 2 minutes to snap the pic. Darn it. I really need to locate my real camera. The redheads stayed close to one another and we let them watch one movie. Us adults headed for bed.
The next day was a little different. A couple of times (okay more than a couple) I headed toward my phone to see if there were any texts I had missed. Nope. At one point I thought about replying back to someone on FB about something. Nope. All of a sudden I had all these people I needed to email. Nope. So I made a list of what I thought I needed to do once I joined the online world again. And then I allowed the day to happen. To distract the girls, specifically the oldest, from the lack of "connection" I took them shopping. That was another weird moment. I took my phone (shut off) with me just in case a car emergency came up but it stayed tucked away in my purse. Several times I thought about hopping on my phone to check this or that. Nope. On the way home, finally, I was going to call Lanny and let him know we were on the way. Nope. What did we ever do without cell phones?! Upon arriving home I discovered that the recipe I was using for dinner that night was on my Kindle. Darn it. So I powered on my Kindle for a few minutes and grabbed the recipe. Of all the nights to make something that came off my Kindle. The minute my Kindle powered up I instinctively hit the Facebook icon and it was pulled up by the time I realized what I had done and exited and went to my bookshelf for the recipe! Sheesh!
When sundown came the oldest was "jonesing" for her electronics and I realized that we need to do this more (the oldest isn't going to be too happy about that) so that the electronics in her life don't have power over her but she has power over them - and the same would be true for all of us. Taking a break from all electronics revealed to me some interesting things: I am much more dependent on my cell phone than I realized, without the "noise" of electronics the house is a lot quieter and that unnerved my kids (the hub and I were just fine with that), TV becomes a temptation when electronics aren't available (which is why I limited it to 1 movie - I didn't want a 24 hour TV marathon to replace the electronics, then there would have been no purpose to the sabbath), being without electronics made us (with the exception of Lanny) a little unsettled/ancy/irritable. In short we rely too much on our electronics to entertain us, interact for us, provide something for us (my recipe was on the Kindle!). Are there benefits to having these electronics? Yes! But we have relinquished our ability to have authenticity with others to screens and keyboards. There's no way we are giving up our electronics or social media pages but the change can come in how much we allow them to dictate our choices and behaviors and our true social lives.
We'll be doing more of these sabbaths. They are good for our souls and our relationships. The redheads may disagree with me but I think, as Monk says, they'll thank us later.
In doing some Googling for the other post I came across this site and found it to be interesting. Perhaps you would be interested by it as well.
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