At my son’s swim class this afternoon, I saw this:
Almost every parent was looking down at their phone.
I would’ve been looking at my phone, too, but I was busy chasing around my two-year-old daughter.
My son’s swim class isn’t the first time I’ve witnessed the phenomenon where in a group where everybody is screen sucking.
Back when I taught martial arts to kids, I had seen parents sitting on the bleachers with their phones out, hunched over, eyes on the screen.
Now, granted, a subset of these folks may be handling important personal matters…
- Getting a last-minute babysitter because they need to attend a funeral
- Wrapping up their work day because they’re working across time zones
- Paying a bill that they forgot to pay before the due date
But I don’t think I’m being presumptuous when I say we know that the larger portion of these people were doing something else.
In these moments, I think about how just 20 years ago, things were not like this.
Cell phones were in their infancy, wifi wasn’t everywhere, and parents at swim classes might be reading a book or a magazine… if not watching their child level-up in life.
Not that things were perfect 20 years ago… people are people and will find ways to pass the time with zoning out and gossip.
But the tech just two decades ago was far less sophisticated, less addicting.
Here’s the thing: I’m not judging us collectively… only observing our behavior.
Individually, we’ve had no choice but to assimilate into the connected world.
We’ve been forced into it, because if we resist it, we probably won’t survive (think about it for a second).
Nowadays, for those of us who are knowledge workers, in order to work, we need to be connected.
But when is connectivity too much?
I believe it’s too much when we’re sitting at our kid’s swim class and can’t help but to reach for our phone every couple minutes.
It’s too much when we spend more time looking at LED screens than we do making eye contact with our loved ones.
When we can’t go but a few minutes without reaching for a device… that’s too much.
I’m making a commitment to myself: To do my very best to unplug from the digital world when I’m with my kids.
When we’re at swim class, the park, Greenfield Village…
My family is a heck of a lot more important than anything I can take in from the glowing rectangle.
Phones away, and eyes up.