By John Eldredge
© John Eldredge.
All rights reserved
I‘m sitting at my desk this morning, writing. My phone, lying facedown next to me, vibrates.
Because yes, I did silence it, but didn’t turn it off. The vibration notification causes a reflex
response. I pick it up, read the text that just came in, reply, set it down, and turn back to my work.
But it takes me a few moments to recover my train of thought. Meanwhile, I remember that a
friend sent me a link to an article that applies to what I am writing this morning, so I decide to
have a look now that I am no longer engaged in writing. The article is helpful and does get my
thoughts rolling again, but as you know, when you get to any news website you don’t simply receive
the article. You’re confronted with a visual experience that is one third article and two thirds
advertising -- and which of those is typically more arresting?
I get five seconds into the article when a pop-up window requests my email address.
This is our daily. This is the stuff that comes at us all the time. It’s like driving at night into a snow-
storm, your headlights illuminating the flurries racing at your windshield. It’s all you can see.
An incessant barrage of “information” competing for our attention. You can’t get away from it. I fly a bit for my living, and airlines know you are a captive audience. Before takeoff, but once I’m buckled in my seat, ads begin to play on the screen before me, and I can’t turn them off. Walk through a modern airport -- it’s a shopping mall designed like a casino, hard to find your way out. I leave the
airport and jump into a cab; a screen immediately starts playing commercials, loudly. Driving down the highway my attention is arrested by the electronic billboards.
It is so counter to the social air we breathe: what has become the normal daily consumption of input is numbing our soul with artificial meaning and purpose while in fact the soul grows thinner and thinner through neglect, harmed by the madness that passes for a progressive life. We are literally being forced into the “shallows” of our life.
The good news is that we actually have a choice. The things which are currently assaulting us we can choose not to participate in.
Here’s a few thoughts for unplugging from that technology.
Turn off notifications. You don’t need to know when your aunt posted another of her dog on Facebook; you can check when you have set aside time to do so.
Fast from social media. Try cutting your use by 50 percent for one week and see what it does
for you.
Turn your phone off by 8 p.m.Give yourself some evening time for real things.
Don’t check your phone as soon as you get up. Enjoy your first peaceful moments.
Do real things. Chop vegetables, play cards, do a puzzle, go for a walk, learn an instrument.
Article courtesy of WildAtHeart.org. John Eldredge is a Christian author, outdoorsman, counselor and lecturer. His books include “Wild At Heart,” “Epic,” “Fathered By God,”“Get your Life Back” and “Resilient.”
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