A couple of weeks ago my cell phone glitched during an upgrade (and I use the term ‘upgrade’ loosely). I lost everything. For almost two days my phone was a very expensive paper weight.  I thought for sure my head would spin around and sparks would fly but finally it came back to life. I feel a little twinge of panic if I get to work and can’t find my phone. It’s this very dependence that frustrates the hell out of me. My kids would surely stop breathing if I took their phones away and my 10 year old is convinced she now must have an iPhone. What the hell for, games and taking pictures? That’s what the iPod is for. I don’t see her needing it to schedule any type of appointment or meeting, she never needs directions anywhere, and she doesn’t even use email. 

Dinner time use to be me trying to chat and ask questions about their day while listening to the frequent soft humming sound coming from under the table notifying them of an incoming message. Really?? Now, I threaten to take their food away if they bring their phones to the table. So flipping ridiculous. 

I’m so thankful I didn’t have a smartphone when my girls were little. They surely would have been neglected. I already feel like I missed so much by working full-time. Coupled with the texting revolution, I can’t help but think that all the good stuff like reading books, capturing firsts, or a good ol’ game of peek-a-boo would have fallen by the wayside. “Oooh, keep your diaper on. I’ll warm up your bottle as soon as I update my Facebook status!” I met a woman the other day who I needed to contact later and I offered to text her. She said she didn’t text and my first thought was “WTF is wrong with you?” (I also discovered she doesn’t watch KU basketball either and then I thought, “No seriously, WTF is your deal?”) 

We rely on technology so much and it’s only logical to expect that we will always be looking for the next cutting age gadget.  Sometimes though I wish it wasn’t such a prevalent distraction, especially with kids. My experience is that kids are braver typing than speaking in person. They don’t hesitate to take pictures of anything and everything and send it to all their friends. Kids are too connected and that isn’t a good thing. We look like a bunch of zombies walking around staring down at our phones like our lives depend on it. I get downright giddy when one of the girls loses their phone privileges because then I know they won’t have a choice but to interact with the family.  

How do you pedal backwards on the wheel of technology? Is there any way of severing that technology umbilical cord once you have fed on its plethora of modern conveniences? Maybe Apple makes an app for that…