are you a #momaddictedtotechnology?

Do you ever feel like you are addicted to technology?

I kind of do.

This is weird for me to admit. I’m not a “compulsive” kind of person. I’m not lured by pop-culture, mass-media, gizmo-gadgets. I’ve never been that into TV. Heck, I don’t even watch “The Bachelor.” {Crazy, I know.} The point is, I have better things to do than technology, and I try to be 100% attentive to my kids.

Until now.

And yup, I’ve been thinking about it, and somehow it happened…

I’m addicted to my i-phone.

addiction: The condition of being abnormally dependent on some habit. Characterized by physiological symptoms upon withdrawal {dictionary.com}.

If I went a day without the internet, I believe I would feel extremely tense inside, and probably my eye would start twitching a little. It sounds immature to blame technology, and not myself. But seriously. It is CRAZY to think of how different life from even ten years ago.

Ten years ago, I was in college. I did not have a cell phone.  (Gasp! Shock! Horror!). I had never read a text. I got about five (boring) emails a day. If I wanted to listen to music while I ran, I (Gasp! Shock! Horror!) held a Walkman in my hand! And if I wanted to feel on the very cutting edge of technology, I put up an “away message” on my “IM.”

But either way, technology didn’t follow me to dinner. It stayed put on the computer, and never hovered next to me in church, or while I waited at a stoplight.

Even five years ago – when Todd and I went on our honeymoon, Facebook did not join us. It was just our “dumb” phones, Palm Beach, and us. It must have been so boring.

But somehow, here I am now, stay-at-home mom in 2013, struggling with this weird compulsion to check my email 85 times a day, and browse pictures of random high school acquaintances’ kids, and look up 256 recipes for “simple, summer meals” instead of making my own.

How did this happen?

I’ve been thinking about it. Here’s why technology is so tempting to moms of little ones.

1. We are tired, and it is nice to zone out.
2. It is satisfying to connect with an adult once in awhile, even if that adult is someone you barely know asking you to participate in a garage sale.
3. If you happen to be worried about something, moments of silence and nothingness and blank space are torture. It’s nice being distracted.
4. It is more thrilling to receive cyber-accolades in the form of “likes” and “comments” than to break up fights, slice waffles, or read the Berenstain Bears. It just is.

And so, technology is a compelling escape for many of us, bored and frazzled mommies especially. But I’m not trying to make everyone feel all guilty and awful here…

I just know that for me, personally, I’ve just had enough.

I want to live more of the real life. My life.

Even if it’s boring sometimes, and has long moments of nothingness and no music playing. Even if it is not entertaining. Even if it makes me frustrated, and is monotonous, and makes me feel like I have been run over by a MACK truck of preschoolers. I want to live more of my life, and to wherever I am, be all there.

This all sounds well and good. And it’s tempting to give you my “five steps for improvement” of how I’ll do this…to tell you I’m selling my iphone and deleting facebook…or locking up my computer by key and lockbox from the hours of 7-7. (I’ve seriously debated all of those, and I’m not saying they’re not sort-of good ideas.)

But here’s the thing.

Laws don’t change people. God changes people.

And here is my heart, and here is what I’m telling God.

Lord, I’m tired today. I’m so fried. Give me strength, Lord. Renew my strength.

God, I’m so worried about this, or this...Show me what to do next.

Lord, I have no idea what to do with these kids. What would you do?

God, I know that kids are way more important than anything else I do today. Remind me of that. Show me that.

I’m not a counselor (I tried but I was too mean), and I’m not a psychologist or therapist or anything like that, but it seems to me that addictions of any sort happen because of a need. Something fake, filling a real need.

And today I was reminded again of this verse: Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. {John 4}

Praying that when I’m thirsty tomorrow, it’s real water I’m drinking…

~

Do you find yourself checking your computer/phone a lot during the day? Is this something you’re working on?

Update: Check out what I’m doing on Sundays to make my life more free & restful!

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This post is linked to www.wearethatfamily.com, raisinghomemakers.net, www.myjoyfilledlife.com

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