{"id":125894,"date":"2024-09-12T08:51:24","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T13:51:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/?p=125894"},"modified":"2024-09-12T08:57:21","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T13:57:21","slug":"lets-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/12\/lets-talk\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s talk……."},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning, \u00a0so remember last time I told you I was going to start doing things a bit out of the box and occasionally writing about random topics that were top of mind. Case in point, my a visit to Target made me cry (click here if you missed it<\/strong><\/em><\/a>) Well today is another one. Just something I have been thinking a lot about. Because I didn’t want this be a boring page of all black text, \u00a0I am attaching some pretty fall pictures here and there just to pretty things up (but totally unrelated to what I am speak about)!<\/p>\n

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I saw this quote below \u00a0and it really got me thinking-<\/p>\n

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I remember those days. And smile when I do. I didn’t know it then, but I was so lucky to have grown up in what I consider to be a much simpler, more innocent time. The world was surely not without problems but there is no question that social media and all the devices we have all (most of us) become addicted to are such a huge part of our every day existence. That certain things have fallen to the wayside. Case in point, one on one in person<\/em> conversations, hand written thank you notes and even invitations, the way children learn and interact, \u00a0just general day to day interactions seem to now be done mostly done through our devices.<\/p>\n

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I remember when we used to leave for a family vacation I would call my closest friends and a few family members and say goodbye, that we were leaving and that as that. They wouldn’t know what I was doing, where we were, where I was going out to dinner that night, nothing. When I got home, the first thing I would do is run to CVS so I could develop our vacation pictures and then I would get on a get this…landline phone<\/em> and call them. There was no texting, or announcement of my return via social media. It was actually calling them and having a real live person to person conversation and recapping my trip. There was something so nice about totally unplugging then getting to reconnect again.<\/p>\n

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These days, no matter where you are in this world, you are a mere click away from being contacted by your circle of family and friends. Two of my sons did these unplug “detox” bootcamps, where you reconnect with nature, bond with other people (almost all their age, young professionals) eat together, go hiking, play sports, etc..but absolutely no devices. Many large companies\/corporations are starting to sponsor these types of breaks. \u00a0Phones, computers, laptops, its all checked in and they both said it was incredible and made them much more mindful about the big chunk of time spent aimlessly on their phones, etc… This is not to say they have made such a dramatic change that don’t use their devices \u00a0but I do feel, \u00a0as they do, that it made them much more aware, use the devices less and that they have learned to be more present and cognizant of their device usage.<\/p>\n

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Almost every time I go to a restaurant, even a \u00a0“nice” restaurant, I see many people with their phones on the table (my personal pet peeve) sorry but to me, unless there is some emergency or you must be reached, \u00a0your phone can be put away. Not having your phone within an inch of your grasp for an hour or two does not seem unreasonable.This is a more American thing as when I am in Europe I see much less of this. Then I am not even going to discuss the number of very young kids I see out and about totally absorbed in a game on either an iPad or phone, I see this more and more.<\/p>\n

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So a quick story. My phone fell and cracked last week. I will spare you the details but suffice to day I made several trips to the AT & T store, the repair store that they partner with and ultimately to the Apple Store several times over the course of 3 days. If I had documented this craziness, it could have gone viral on YouTube:) I did not have access to my broken phone for 3 days. The first day made me so anxious but you know, \u00a0by the third day I kind of liked it:) I realized I was still standing, nothing crazy had happened, the world was still spinning and it wasn’t so bad being forced to be without my phone. I really enjoyed the temporary break from the constant ping of text messages from friends, family and my office. Everything eventually got done and was responded to, not necessarily as fast as I would normally respond but it was fine and all was worked out.<\/p>\n

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So all this to say that while I admit I love the access of having my cell phone, my iPad at night when I am laying in bed and my computer for work days, there is something to be said for those of us who \u00a0knew the other side (the tech free side). I am not touching on what it’s doing to teenagers, that is an entirely new post on its own! \u00a0Sadly our kids will not ever experience that and I grapple with who the luckier one, \u00a0us or them. If I am to be honest, I think I am. We know social media no matter your age is a comparison trap, and we also all know comparison is the thief of joy. I often think about that effect it must have on a young preteen or teenager. And you can’t escape it, its 24\/7.<\/p>\n

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I may not have had the instant access to well, just about everything but because of that, I had to work a little harder, used my critical thinking skills A LOT \u00a0more, use my brain in stead of a device to look something up\/educate myself on, had very adequate social skills and in general, made genuine efforts to get things done. Tech has even affected the way we parent. Many are giving iPads to even super young kids as a convenient tool to keep them occupied with the limitless assortment of games, music and even interactive activities for babies as young as newborns. I believe through the lens of a millennial, this is seen as mostly positive. But as someone in her “late 50’s” (cant’ say that much longer) I see it quite differently and now that I have a grandson, this entire story becomes much more personally relevant.<\/p>\n

There has been a huge outcry from educators saying how kids start the school year burnt out, lacking social skills, and that their attention spans have been greatly stuttered. I think we are just starting to see the reverberations. \u00a0I could go on and on but have expressed my feelings here. I feel fortunate and love the access our devices provide, make no mistake, but I do think often of the “cost” these will potentially have on the current Gen Alpha generation and beyond. There is no other way to say it other than the future of society and technology will involve an unhealthy \u00a0dependence on technology. These are uncharted waters for the future and no one really knows how it will all play out. \u00a0Getting off my soapbox and now curious as to your thoughts….<\/p>\n

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Thanks for stopping in. Curious as to what you think about all this, and boy it is a quickly changing landscape! Until next time….<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good morning, \u00a0so remember last time I told you I was going to start doing things a bit out of the box and occasionally writing about random topics that were top of mind. Case in point, my a visit to Target made me cry (click here if you missed it) Well today is another one. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125894"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125894"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":125924,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125894\/revisions\/125924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.enchantedhome.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}