Blackout

Blackout

Question to start…

How much time do you spend with your phone, laptop, ipad, tablet in your hand a day?

when I worked out how long I spent with mine it was quite astonishing. After having a series of different conversations with different people revolving around media, and other things that ill get to in a bit I made a choice to cut it all out for a week this involved no texting, phone calls, no Facebook, snapchat, instagram, twitter anything and complete blackout from anything electronic. At points I found it easy, hard, I thought I was completely stupid and yet brave. this how I got to that point.

Firstly I don’t hate media or electronics, quite the opposite but the way I prioritised having my phone in my hand all the time instead of giving my mum or friends my full attention which they rightly deserve didn’t/doesn’t sit right with me. As a society/generation/species I think we are arrogant in our own different ways we all try and play God (I do it too). We need to have the best and have it now, we need to know everything and to the finest detail, we constantly want more and want to know more, which itself isn’t bad that’s why God gave us brains to ask question, to dig deeper into finding answers and creating things. But! its got to the point where we are greedy and selfish, where we have to have the latest laptop, where we need to know everything about everything, where politicians are arguing over bankers bonuses, where dogs end up have rabbits ears on their heads, where we are cloning sheep and creating man made nuclear weapons that could destroy the planet with a push of a button… We are killing this planet and ourselves by our greed!  

Ghandi says “The world have enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed”. But what was I to do about it, I mean I cant get rid of nuclear weapons over night, I cant change politicians culture overnight, BUT I can change myself and how I think and share with you guys what I learnt.

I thought that if people went without phones etc. for 4000 years before now 6 days wont kill me, which funnily enough it didn’t, I found it insightful and in a way freeing not looking at several different ways of people getting in contact with me, I did have to use my phone a couple of time for logistical reasons and I checked my phone once for selfish reasons but I spent time with my mum, I read my book, I went for runs but yet I felt lonely at points and disconnected because of course before mobiles and laptops you would just go see your friends, you would keep to your plans and you would know more of your neighbours and spend time with them.. we have lost community which is exactly what God called us too live like, I know they are exceptions but technology has isolated ourselves from ourselves but yet we weren’t created to be on our own, to be isolated.

so why have we become like this? why does technology rule our lives? we have bodies for a reason why aren’t we using them to there full potential, and lastly, how long are we going to continue like this? until we communicate by having conversations with our friends across the table via laptops?

now I’m not going to continue with my technology blackout but I’m changing the way I work with technology and how my life wont be revolved around it . This experience was challenging but such a great eye opener and would recommend it to anyone.

God bless

Kat x