Our Dependence on Technology

Going without a phone for over a week will teach you very quickly how dependent you are on technology. I recently returned from two weeks away from home. I was in Nicaragua for a mission trip for a week, and then at the beach for our Youth Camp with our Cornerstone teens. While in Nicaragua, my phone started going crazy. At first, it wouldn’t hold a charge, and then it finally quit turning on. I had replacement insurance on the phone, so a replacement was sent to my home, but that meant I was without my phone for over a week.

I’m old enough to remember life before cell phones and email. In fact, I even remember the first modern web browser, Mosaic, being released during my junior year of college. So it’s hard to understand and even believe how far we have come over the past 25 years. I use my phone for my calendar, for my todo list, for note-taking, for reading the news, for tracking exercise, for reading my Bible, and a lot more. I kept reaching for my phone every day out of habit, even though it wasn’t there.

In some ways, being disconnected is a humbling experience. It makes you realize that the world doesn’t stop, even if you don’t know what’s going on. Your company or your church won’t fall apart just because people can’t get in touch with you. It forced me to slow down, to interact more with the people around me, to look up. I think we all need to disconnect more, talk more, and serve more. Technology is a tool that can help you, but don’t let technology keep you from engaging the world around you.