I'm not really going to disconnect from the virtual world, but I am going to connect less often. I've managed to leave my phone behind (not always on purpose) several times in the past few weeks and find that I get along very well without it.
When it's handy and I'm bored (which is fairly often) I have the tendency to just pull it out and connect to Facebook, Twitter, Blogger or whatever might feed my boredom at the moment. I try to remember to leave my cell phone in my locker or backpack (or turn it off) when it's time to get to work and I find that the world gets along well without my input and there are very few people that actually call or text me with any urgent business during the day.
I have observed what others have found in studies...that we are less engaged with the people that we are with when we have our cell phones. It's happened to me, too. Chris and I might be at a restaurant and sitting across from each other, each on our own phones. I've seen tables of several people that all have their phones out and are not engaging in any interaction with each other. I really think that we have become a less polite society because of the way we treat one another on our social network of choice. It is so much easier to be rude and nasty to one another when we don't have to face one another. Unfortunately, we get so used to the rude and nasty us that it has become our way even when we do speak face to face.
I'm pretty sure that nobody is going to notice that I'm spending less time on Facebook or Twitter. That's kind of the point. We have all become so narcissistic that we actually think other people value our opinions! I'm not going to vanish into the virtual world anyway. I am just going to give it a much lower priority in the day-to-day, moment-by-moment events of life.
Until I connect again, be well.
John <><
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