When I was a kid, I had a choice of several things I could do. I could ride my bike, get out my Transformers, fire up my Intellivision, or a few other things—but there were limits to my selection. There were only so many things I could do outside, toys I could play with inside, or video games I could choose from.
As I see my own kids—at the same age—there selection has multiplied at least ten fold, with hoards of games that can be downloaded in a few minutes, videos and movies that can be found at any given moment, along with the usual organic forms of play I had as a kid. Our digital devices present an entire new level of choices, but it isn’t just our kids who face this day to day.
What do you do when you turn on your computer, pick up your tablet, or swipe open your smartphone?
There are a lot of choices isn’t there?
Never in human history have we had so many things to choose to do with our time.
Digital Choices
The quantity of these ‘digital choices’ keep us busy and focused on things that we probably shouldn’t be so focused on as life passes us by. We call it life, but it’s really Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. These are all extensions of our real life, but I am afraid that at some point, our time spent re-living our lives will supersede and surpass living life in the first place, robbing us all of being fully in the moment.
Jason Vana wrote this post about Starting the Day Right. He asked a very powerful question:
“You can waste twenty minutes on social media, or allow it to change your day by spending it with God.”
Dang.
That’s pretty powerful, right?
You can throw a couple of other things in there too:
“You can waste twenty minutes on social media, or allow it to change your day by spending it with …
…your spouse.”
…your kids.”
…your friends.”
…your neighbor.”
Fill in the blank, you get the idea.
I don’t mean this as a way to demonize or slam social media or technology. I think all of it’s awesome and can be used for wonderful stuff; but let’s be careful with all of these digital choices.
Maybe even prune a few.
There will always be a blog post to read, a photo to share, and a status to Like; but there are some choices that we only get to make once.
[Matrix billboard image via Photobucket]
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