This past weekend my inlaws came for the first time for a nice visit to our (not so new) house. We had fun talking, swimming, playing with a busy toddler, going to church, and eating! But it seemed like every time there was a minute of down time, one or ALL of us were on our laptop or in my husband's case, his Blackberry!
So picture this...5 adults piled up on our big sectional (after the baby has gone to bed), the TV is on, hubby has his blackberry, I have a laptop out, SIL has a laptop out, FIL has a laptop out and MIL is sort of sharing one with me. We were checking emails, watching youtube vids, checking facebook and in my case, sending cards online. We actually joked about it several times, so it really did seem funny to all of us. But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I began to wonder, WHY?
What is soooo pressing and so important on that screen and on the world wide web that we would actually prefer to spend time glaring at it than spending time with REAL flesh and blood people who are sitting right in front of us? The funny thing is, we were still carrying on conversations and were chatting (in person and online), but would be clicking away on our laptops. Is this normal? Do any of you other families do this?
Are we just THAT disconnected? Or is it that merely sitting around having a conversation and visiting is no longer "satisfying" enough, so we need MORE stimulation?
What are your thoughts?
It's the new way of life! Well, maybe not for everyone but for some of us we seem to have become geeks and can't live without clicking away. Even our conversations revolve around our 'virtual' friends on FaceBook and other 'social' networks. It is kind of ironic how we've become so disconnected, all the while being more 'connected' by this thing we call the web. I'm not sayin' it's good or it's bad. I'm just sayin'!
ReplyDeleteRon, aka The Former Donut Junkie