Do You Ever Detox from Technology?

We live in a technology driven world where everything is on 24/7 and it’s exhausting.

Why do we let technology control us? The last time I checked, we have free will, or do we?

How many of you feel anchored to your cell phones, and other devices at the detriment of living your life in the physical world?

What would happen if you left your cell phone at home for a day?

You’d hate it right?

You might say:

“I need it for work.”

or

“I can’t live without it.”

“I need it…”

Is technology an addiction that none of us can break?

Is everybody a technology addict?

The world is perpetually awake because computers don’t need to sleep. They only need power. Every device that beeps, buzzes, hums, vibrates, or glows stay connected, (no matter what the time is) because someone out there is always awake.

Let that sit for a moment.

Someone out there is always awake…

What does it have to do with you?

How does it affect your personal time?

Your family, and your friends?

What would happen to you personally if you didn’t have your cell with you every waking hour?

Yeah, I hear you, and I feel the same.

If I didn’t have my cell with me, I couldn’t do my work. I rely on my cell all the time. It’s not just communication anymore. My cell is my life. It’s my work and my private life. It’s my source of information and safeguarding at school. It’s my source of communication and entertainment in my private life.

How did we get to this?

How did we allow technology to infiltrate our lives like this?

Technology has changed our communities and relationships

In the old days, you were isolated if you lived in the countryside. Some people could go for days without seeing another person.

The physical distance between countries was a major boundary and people didn’t travel as much. You know all your neighbors from seeing and talking to them every day.

How many people speak to their neighbors every day now? Do you even know their names?

Many corporations are global these days with offices scattered all over the world. If you are chasing that giant paycheck, you often end up working for one of them. Blinded by all those Dollar signs, you agree to sign a “zero hours” contract.

Sounds familiar?

Then the fun begins.

Time zones get blurred between continents and personal boundaries are broken every single day because technology never sleeps. Between incessant phone calls and messages, there’s barely time for breakfast with your family.

Say goodbye to family time at the weekend because of that latest work trip that couldn’t wait. You saved the company millions of Dollars on that latest work trip, but did you see any of the money you earned?

The answer is probably no. You’re keeping the “fat cats fat,” leaving the normal “worker bees” laboring for next month’s paycheck.

What did it cost you this time?

Did you miss your daughter’s recital? Your son’s football game? Or that long-awaited romantic weekend with your wife / husband? All of them canceled again.

When do we switch off?

When do we say no?

When do we say that enough is enough?

When do we say that our private lives matter more?

Are you even in a position where you can say no?

That line between privacy and work isn’t meant to be broken.

Yet, it is and it happens increasingly. Technology infiltrates our private lives and we can’t say no.

We shouldn’t feel like we must be on call every hour of the day, including the ones when we sleep.

There used to be boundaries and common sense about when it was okay to call someone. I remember when I was a kid that I couldn’t see my friends at 6am when I woke up because it was “too early”.

Is it ever too early, or too late nowadays?

Where do you draw that line between work and privacy?

I mean, who wants to be called at 3am by somebody that works for the same company as you, but lives on the opposite side of the world?

Their middle of the day is your night, so what’s the problem? They didn’t break the law in their time zone. They just made a phone call to a colleague.

Does it matter that s/he was asleep because it was night for them?

Is it even legal?

Where do we draw the line between work and rest?

Somebody is always awake.

When the line is blurred between privacy and company time, you start to live in the grey zone. This is where life is blurred. Where anything goes and where nothing is private anymore.

Your private life is constantly shoved aside because of work. Your personal time is made smaller, until you don’t know the difference between work and private life.

How do we get to this?

My life is in the grey technology zone often because my husband works for a global company. His work never ends and we often get called in the middle of the night. Someone needs his help to fix a problem that is so urgent, it cannot wait until the morning.

That phone call doesn’t just wake him up, but we all wake up.

The whole house.

The world falls silent at night and when someone is woken up and starts talking, that is hard to sleep through.

My kids and I need to get to school the next day. Our reality doesn’t change because of the 3am phone call. We still must get up the next day.

It’s hard to live in the 21st century sometimes.

How do you deal with constant interruptions? The incessant phone calls from across the world.

When is it okay to say NO?

My name is Lizzy. I’m a trauma survivor, a wife, a mom, a teacher, and an author.

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For more about me: www.elizabethwoodsauthor.com

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