Phones: The Good AND The Not So Good (Part 1)

Phones!

First there was the telegram, then came the house phone, the car phone, the 5 pound cell phone, the flip phone, the Razr, and the iPhone 3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9.

As technology develops, phones continue to do great things for individuals, communities, friendships, and even youth soccer coaches, who no longer have to spend 30 minutes calling every person to tell them about a change in game time or a rain delay (shout out to my dad). As grateful as I am for cell phone advancements, I have also noticed detrimental consequences resulting from their usage. It makes me wonder, if an honest reflection about the current patterns of phone use would convince anyone that humans are handling this portable and powerful technology appropriately?

The Not So GOOD

Phones have tremendous capability and can be used to make a more effective leader, a more involved friend, and a better informed human being. However, through misuse, they can much more easily produce the slow destruction of everything that makes you human.

I imagine if I interviewed a cell phone user in two years, there is a very real possibility it could sound like this:

“Conversations are difficult. It takes effort and formidable strength to get through the formalities and often-awkward small talk. Thankfully though, I have a phone and I can avoid all of those conversations before they turn into something about my personal life that requires me to say something honest or produce an opinion.  On the occasion that I want to venture into a scary conversation, I am comforted by the fact that if things get awkward I can avoid all of it with the beautiful hand held electronic in my pocket.

Nothing is worse than being at dinner with my friends though. That can be so awkward. Usually we start off strong with some sort of light conversation about a recent joke seen on Twitter. Pretty soon though, everyone is simply staring at each other. My friend with the flip phone keeps trying to keep the joke going, but I can avoid this by texting another friend who wants to know what I’m doing next week. If I don’t have a friend to text, usually someone has added an Instagram picture or tweeted since the last time I checked 10 minutes ago.  It’s pretty awesome if you think about it. I can be connected with these friends at dinner all the while being connected with hundreds of my other friends on my phone. It’s the best of both worlds right? Pretty soon the conversation completely dies, but that’s okay-I am hanging out with my friends and all the while ignoring that painful process of conversation.  Pretty soon I won’t need to be able to hold a conversation anyway.

“We all really need to listen to each other, including to the boring bits.” – Sherry Turkle

“Like anything that becomeshabitual, we lose sight of ourselves as we continually check it, read it,respond to it throughout the rhythms of our days, unaware of the ways that ithas hindered us from connecting to the people, places, and objects around us.” – Mike Cosper

When I’m in class I am grateful for my phone. Class can be so boring. It requires the ability to pay attention for a brief period of time. The material takes effort to understand. I don’t want to put in effort when I can play a game on my phone.  Besides, what fun or value is there in learning something about history, philosophy, economics, or science?  Those things don’t help me live a richer life.  I can’t tweet about that.  Besides, I often forget to take my medicine and I can’t focus. It has nothing to do with this electronic distraction in my hand though.

The time I’m most thankful for my phone? You might not ever guess. It’s when I’m alone.  What did people actually do before phones?  I would feel so lonely.  Apparently, people used to reflect on their lives and think about what is important in life. How am I supposed to know what to talk with people about when I see them, if I don’t see what they are doing on Facebook first? I get bored if I don’t get a notification after five minutes. Meditating is annoying. Day dreaming is not stimulating. Nor is thinking deeply about life, which to be honest I don’t really know how to do.

“If we’re not able to be alone, we’re going to be more lonely. And if we don’t teach our children to be alone, they’re only going to know how to be lonely.”  - Sherry Turkle

Google is great and so are the professional quality photographs of places that I have visited, but they have nothing on my Instagram filters. Forget enjoying the moment, taking in the sounds, smells, and forming real memories to be stored in my hippocampus or cerebral cortex. I need five angles of the same building with none of my friends in it and my face right in front. What makes a real memory in my opinion? If it’s on Instagram and other people can see it and validate my manicured experience.

Seriously though, my phone is GREAT. I can access the weather, Facebook, Instagram, Fantasy Football, music, Snap Chat, Vine, scores to the game, Twitter, YouTube, and the internet anywhere in my life instantaneously. I can call a friend from across the country and be connected in 5 seconds. In about a minute, I can text a video file bigger than what my old computer used to be able to even hold. And if it doesn’t go through the first time it’s annoying as glue.  Why can’t I get a degree, find a job, and meet the person of my dreams with as much ease and instant gratification?”

Note: This interview has been paraphrased and edited at many parts, by the author, because of excessive use of “LOL”, hashtags, and poor grammar by the interviewee.

Video: "I Forgot My Phone"

Click to See The 5 Rules Against Phone Misuse

Phones: The Good AND The Not So Good (Part 2)

Phones: The Good AND The Not So Good (Part 2)

The GOOD

After recently moving to a new city, I have a greater appreciation for my phone. My phone has allowed me to stay in touch with my friends and my family (hi mom). Without it, I would likely have little clue what is going on back home in the lives of people I care deeply about.

As a second year teacher the efficiency with which my phone handles tasks is rivaled only by a real secretary (hi Siri). I am able to use occasional down time to check email. I have an awesome to do list that is easily accessible and organized. Calendar alerts from Gmail remind me of meetings and allow me to keep my job. Since I’m definitely not going to cook, my map app allows me to find what I want for dinner and order it over the phone. I can even find the fastest way there and avoid the Chicago traffic that brings out the worst in me.

I have access to any song in the universe on my phone, allowing me to explore different artists without the quality radio commercials.  Podcasts and talk radio continue to inspire and challenge the way I think. My phone provides quick and portable access to these programs.  I can check my fantasy football and quickly assess if I need to remind a friend who his daddy is or if I should quietly avoid all contact and save myself some abuse.

Phones have tremendous capability and can be used to make a more effective leader, a more involved friend, and a better informed human being. However, through MISUSE, they can much more easily produce the slow destruction of everything that makes you human. 

Click here to see The 5 Rules Against Phone Misuse

Phones: The Rules (Part 3)

Phones: The Good AND The Not So Good

The RULES

It’s not the use of any of these social networks or phone apps, but rather the misuse that is so destructive.  What qualifies as a misuse? Well I am not quite sure and I definitely don’t have all the answers (yet), but I would start with anything that breaks one of these rules?

   1.  No social network or texting when family or friends are present. 

  Phones are a great tool to connect you with friends and family. When you are with THEM there is no need to connect, at that moment, with another friend.

        2.  No phones at meals or on short car rides.

      Great opportunity to talk with the people you are “stuck” with.

     

         3.  Stop thinking people care if you respond to them right away.

    No one should care if you respond an hour later.

    If you are someone who cares when someone doesn’t respond to you right away… please stop! They still care about you.

       4. Turn off the Notifications

  Don’t let notifications dictate what occupies your attention. You decide. Conversations, studying, and driving are much more important objects of your attention.

         5. NO food pictures on Instagram.

       Maybe I just don’t appreciate the art of food enough. 

Interesting TED TALK if you are still Interested:

SEE THE NOT SO GOOD PART ABOUT PHONES

This Joy Is Not Naive My Friend.

This joy is not naive my friend.

It’s not based on happiness or circumstance

.

It is not swayed by the winds of today or the pleasures of the past. No, no, no, no, no. No, this joy is based on the future.

A future that will not change.  That cannot change. It’s a joy rooted in hope.  A confident  expectation. Based on the truth I Know.

Hope that Jesus is coming back and that He is who he said he was. 

Hope that this world will be restored.

Hope that the pain I experience is only temporary and but a drop compared to the ocean of eternity with him.

Hope that Jesus is better.

Hope in the fact that I am receiving the goal of my faith, that is the salvation of my soul.

I Hope in a God who saves, 

a God who loves,  

and a God, who unlike anything in this world, fully satisfies.

My friend it is not naive to be joyful.

Truth Like A River

TRUTH LIKE A RIVER

There once was a powerful river that ran through the country of My Life. It has no particular name. This river cut its way jaggedly through the middle of the country and its branches trickled outwards across the countryside.  There were many villages along the banks of this river. To name a few they were called, Love, Hope, Identity, Joy, Belief, and Desire. 

This country was faring well and had done so for some time now. The villages also fared well themselves. But something was missing and despite the best efforts of the country it could not figure out what it was. One day, a storm began to brew on the border of My Life. This was not a rare occurrence because storms came almost every day to this country. They usually brought a slight degree of damage, but nothing that a little bit of work and time couldn’t repair. However, there was something about this storm that appeared to be different. It looked to be stronger and fiercer than any storm the little country had seen before. It loomed dark and powerful in the sky. The breeze began to quicken and large trees swayed in the wind. The storm was coming.

It began to rain. The rain saturated the country side and the river began to swell. The water in the river was churning and rapids began to form. The water splashed against the rocky bank and the mist sprayed the trees hanging over the river before returning to the pool of churning water. The rain continued all day and as it did, the water gradually yet forcefully overcame the banks of the river that ran through My Life.  

The water continued to rise as the storm continued throughout the entire day. Soon the water reached the villages that lay on the banks of the river. It began to puddle the floor of huts and shops in the villages. The foundations were beginning to rot. The river would not stop rising despite the best efforts of the country. It continued to rise. All day long it rose. Before sunset the churning, saturating river could be seen covering all but the roofs of the village huts and shops. All My Life could do now was watch and hope for the best and that some villages would be left. Or at least a hut to live in.

In the morning, as the sun cracked over the horizon the whole scene could be seen. Debris, from the villages bobbed up and down as it was taken down the river. Over the next couple of days the water began to retreat back into its banks and along with it the hope that any hut in any village would be left standing.

When the river was almost back in the confines of its banks, the villages of Love, Hope, Identity, and Joy were desolate. Not a structure was left standing, not even the foundations. The huts and villages had been swept away by the powerful current and rising water. There was no remnant of a village ever existing, with the exception of a clearing in the trees, where huts had once proudly stood. What a fragile thing in which so much time can be spent building and yet so quickly destroyed.

However, when all appeared lost and as if nothing would remain to rebuild My Life the villages of Belief and Desire were found to be completely intact. The huts and shops that stood there before the storm and the flood, stood proudly still. 

In the village of Belief the most peculiar thing had happened. The huts and shops appeared to be rotated. They were facing a different direction than they had before the storm. Some that were before facing the west were now turned to the East as if to watch the rising sun. Some were hardly turned at all. But no hut was completely exempt from this peculiar rotation.  Crazily enough, in the village of Desire not a single hut was moved. However, in some miraculous way the water and debris that rose and swept by the village had scrapped an inscription on the city gate. It read, “Delight yourselves in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” The huts had not changed and they looked no different, but now they understood why they were created and carefully placed in My Life.

The flooding river brought change and renewal to the country of My Life. As the villages of Belief and Desire began to grow stronger and larger, so too did the villages of Love, Hope, Identity, and Joy. In fact, Belief and Desire had a particularly large influence on the development of these newly created and refreshed villages. These villages were all more fervent and steadfast than before. So much so, that, they began to consider the flooding river as a vital blessing. It was decided upon to give the river a name and it was so named The Truth of God.

John 16:13
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.

Ephesians 1:13-14
And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession-to the praise of his glory.

Finding Jesus Under the Bed

Last year, we lived in a small house on a busy road. It had four bedrooms and there were six roommates. It was small, but it was comfortable. When summer rolled around it was time for us to go our separate ways and head off to camp, home, or internships. To save money we decided to sublease the house. The guys who were subleasing lived on campus and had no furniture of their own. It worked out perfectly because we could keep our stuff there which eliminated the hassle of having to move out and they could use our furniture instead of having to buy new furniture. We left the house with much of our things still in it.

Fast forward through the summer: my roommates and I were sitting around in the new house we had just moved into. We were watching the television and talking with each other, when my roommate Cory sat up excitedly and said to Will, another roommate, “Let’s go check out that book that Joe was talking about.”  Will instantly became as excited as Cory. They jumped up together and sprinted for the stairs. Not fully understanding what could be so exciting about a book, I nonetheless found myself caught up in the excitement and running up the stairs behind them. When we got to Will’s room he pulled out a book called The Reason for God by Timothy Keller. Will flipped open the cover and pulled out a folded piece of notebook paper that was placed inside. Cory explained that they met someone the day before that was one of the guys who had subleased our old house over the summer. Cory described how the guy told him that he found this book under Cory and Will’s bunk bed (it’s a wonder he found anything under that bunk bed) and how it turned out to be just the thing he needed to read.

This is was the letter read:
  
To the owner of this book,

             I am writing you this to tell you that you have saved my life. 
Here is my story:

            Throughout my early years, I was raised in the church. I was taught how to take communion and how to say my prayers. I never questioned the culture in which I grew up, and needless to say, as I got older, my faith all but evaporated. I was trying to live my life by the merit system and existed under the promise of “relative morality”. However, the love and Grace of God was nowhere to be found. I had become a skeptic of the Christian faith and at the same time there was a void in my life that I could simply not fill. All of this is changing. It began one Sunday afternoon when I was feeling alone and empty when I realized out of nowhere that earthly wants could no longer keep me blindfolded. I prayed the Lord’s prayer and immediately felt comforted. This was a very exciting moment, but I did not know where to go from there. 

At this point is where I felt God reach out to me for the first time. The very next morning, a Monday, I was looking for my glasses under the bed in the room I was staying. I had lived there for about eight weeks and not known that anything other than my clothes were under there. It was there that I found this book and it was then that my walk toward/with Christ began. It is now Thursday and after having just completed [this book], I can honestly say that my doubts of Christianity have been extinguished and I am making a dead sprint to heaven through Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior.

            Yours in Christ,

            TX AG ‘12

He was looking for his glasses under the bed. Instead he found a book that led him to faith in Jesus and a vision for life that is clearer than one any pair of glasses could produce.

Go Tell it on the Mountain

This video is both challenging and convicting:

This video was shown at church a couple weeks back.

Penn is an atheist that has his own talk show. He believes there is no God. This video was made after he received some genuine compliments and a bible from a man who follows Christ.  He makes a very powerful argument for the importance of telling people about what you believe to be truth. Listen to what he has to say.

 

“If you believe there is a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life or whatever. And you think that uh.. well its not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward…How much do you have to HATE someone, to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them about it.”

Convicting eh? I claim to love people, but so often I fail to share the truth that has transformed my life and filled me with joy, hope, peace, and purpose. I have a story. A life changed by grace.  People have a desire for purpose and truth. Oh how I need to tell them the truth that I know.