What has happened to us?  Where did we pick up the idea that a telephone call is more important than the person right there with us?

Human beings have always looked for ways to stay in touch over the distances that separate us; smoke signals, drums, and letters.  With technological advances we’ve progressed from the telegraph to the telephone, from the written word to being able to hear one another in real time and have a conversation.  It seems to me that texting is a step backwards to the telegraph!  Faster maybe, but missing a key component, being able to hear.  Listening to someone and being listened to in turn is a far more meaningful exchange than is possible in text.  It might not seem to be that big a deal but…

There’s a new addiction taking control of peoples lives today.  An addiction to using social media.  Social media can be a very good thing when it’s used  to connect with family and friends and meet new people.  But spending hours on-line posting comments, instant messaging and texting is a sign we’ve looking in the wrong place for something we really need.

A myriad of physical symptoms accompany this habit and  give us a clue that being perpetually “connected”  when ever and where ever by cellphone or computer, isn’t a healthy pastime either; head aches, eye strain and neck strain, sleeplessness, fatigue, weight gain or lose are only a few of the physical problems and then there are  the mental and emotional consequences too; depression, anxiety, irritability, mental fatigue just to name a few.

But as long as we have an unsatisfied need, a compulsion drives us back on line.  The way hunger drives us to the refrigerator.

A genuine need can never be satisfied by a counterfeit.  Human beings are social by nature and need relationship, real connection, person to person.

There’s a commercial for a cell phone provider that illustrates the problem.  Three people are trapped together and isn’t it wonderful that they all have cell phones so they can call someone else, talk to someone else INSTEAD of getting acquainted with the people with them.  I’m being sarcastic…

We’ve been programmed to respond to bells, from child hood bells told us when to get up out of bed, when to go to class, when class was over and recess had begun.  But now as adults, we need to take back control of our lives, remind ourselves that machines work for us, rather than the other way around.

As long as we overlook the here and now and those who are with us at the moment and continue to choose a nebulous future and the loose connection texting or posting via social media lures us into, we will be missing out on what we really need, person to person connection satisfies our genuine need for real connections with others.

If you’ve been in the habit of answering your cell phone when ever, where ever you are in spite of who you’re with and what you’re doing, choose now to be with the people with you!  And let your machine work for you.  You will very likely experience some anxiety the first time you let a call go through to your voice mail, but each time you do, you’ll be taking back your life and satisfying a need for living in real time, in the moment,  and enjoying a real connection that will satisfy that genuine need for fellowship with others.