The
advent of smart phones has introduced an unprecedented rate of interruption
into our social interactions. Phones have made us selfish and inconsiderate in
ways that used to be deemed boorish and uncultured.
Formerly,
if someone walked up to you and began talking while you were already engaged in
another conversation, that person would be considered rude.
But
this decade has made us feel rude for not replying instantly to any
interruption that hails from our phone.
You
know how frustrating it is to be halted mid-sentence by a text chime tone, only
to have the person you were talking with treat the “What’s up?” ping as if it
were a life-and-death enquiry. I understand if Jack Bauer asked me to hold my
thought while he checked the text message from the President. But very few
people work for CTU or are on call to intercept a terrorist attack.
Most
people answer their phones for one reason only: they heard it “Ping.” How
Pavlovian can you get?
Consider
just how inconsiderate and demeaning it is to peer intently into a screen,
while the person in front of your face is still talking to you.
And
even if the message is from an important source for a truly urgent reason,
surely we owe it to whomever we are conversing with to let them finish their
thought, or otherwise excuse ourselves with an explanation of why this intruder
is legitimately more important than they are.
I
believe this is becoming an area in which Christians can witness and set an
example. Personally, I am going to resolve this new year to not allow my phone
to make me behave inconsiderately to those I love.
By
the way, I once rejected a phone call during a family dinner. Do you know what
happened? Nothing. Go figure. Apparently my availability is not as critical to
national security as Jack Bauer’s.
Phillipians 2:3b …
in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
Excerpted from “4 Godly Disciplines
Unique to this Decade” posted on December 30, 2013 at “The Cripplegate”
by Clint Archer. For the complete article
see http://thecripplegate.com/4-godly-disciplines-unique-to-this-decade
No comments:
Post a Comment