PLUGGED IN

(Published in the March 2010 edition of The East Bay Psychiatric Association Newsletter)


A recent report indicated that today’s youth spend about 50 hours a week plugged in to high tech products—I Pods, cell phones, video games, computers and a multitude of other electronic devices. Some teens listen to their I Pods while texting on their I Phones while looking at Facebook while “twittering” and sending e-mails. They are often consumed with the stimulation of high tech gadgets to the exclusion of having any time to reflect, ponder, or actually think about anything else.

What has this new age of technology brought us? I suppose like anything else, too much of a good thing is no longer a good thing. Humans can overdose on just about anything: bread, salt, fat, sugar, TV, alcohol, drugs, sex--you name it. Some technology is great, like the access to the universe of information at our fingertips on Google. But how much is too much?

When I was a teenager, I worked in a snack bar for a couple of summers. The day I started work there I asked the manager if I would have to pay for the food I ate or could eat the food for free. “Eat all you want for free,” he said, knowingly. So after about a week of gorging on greasy hamburgers, hot dogs and all the cokes, ice cream sandwiches and candy that my enormous appetite could tolerate, I began to bring my own lunches consisting of anything but those foods that I had quickly come to abhor. It is for this reason, I presume, that people who work in candy shops, ice cream parlors, or bakeries can actually keep their figures. They smell, taste and ingest more than they care to of the sweet products they are selling, and pretty soon the person no longer finds such treats a treat at all, but something to avoid.

But back to technology! When will people get enough of multi tasking, of being constantly “plugged in,” or of being connected to so many people that they don’t have a moment to themselves? When will the normal human desire of wanting to ponder, reflect, and think be restored to some balance so that a person is not just an extension of all the technology that their eyes, ears, and fingers can manage?

Sometimes I wonder if our modern world has become so complex and/or distasteful that people need to escape it through technology or they would go crazy. But life does not need to be so distracting that one cannot respond to the beauty of a sunrise or sunset, the wonder of rain or a rainbow, or the magic of a blossoming flower or a budding tree. When I see people talking on their cell phones or looking at their I- phones when on a nature walk, I wonder why they went on the walk in the first place.

I have a little sign at my front door that says: “Live simply, laugh often, love deeply.” Maybe that’s the reason that my cell phone is about 10 years old, my television 20 years old, and I don’t have an I-phone (yet). I still use a typewriter to do my bills in my office and I still use paper and pencil to schedule my appointments. I have resisted technology when I feel it would make my life more complicated, not less, and I try to live according to that adage at my front door. As I get a little older, I know I’ll add more technology to my life if that helps me simplify things. But I refuse to miss the natural beauty, joy, and wonder of the moment that have absolutely nothing to do with technology, but are simply part of being human.