We Interrupt This Screen for a Moment of Real Life
Your 3 minute SPARK* to Happier
STORY/PICTURE:
Setting: Exam Room, Pulmonologist (dealing with post-Covid asthma, who even knew there was such a thing?)
I check my emails on my phone while waiting alne, and then notice this sign on the wall:
ABSOLUTELY! No Cell Phone Use while providers, nurses or medical assistants are in the rooms.
Sign in Doctor’s Exam Room.
I ask the nurse and then the PA about it, when they come in. (yes, I put away my phone). They each share how many times they’d been trying to question, examine or instruct a patient, only to be interrupted by a ringtone, and then “oh, sorry I have to take this.”
They’d had enough. The PA says, “Look, if your daughter is in labor or something, I get it. But too many times my time was interrupted for a marketing call, or a call about where someone left their socks. It got so that I had to walk out of the room and ask them to reschedule.”
Yes. I agree. Some things can wait. Seriously. Take a moment and be , well, IN that moment.
Your daughter will find her socks, or learn that she has to wait for an answer. If moments are all we have, it’s time to choose real life - things like eye contact, full attention, human connection) over the temptation and instant communication of devices.
Research shows that a smartphone, face down and unanswered, between 2 people reduces the satisfaction level of both participants by over 40%. One of my Digital Wellness workshop attendees added , “Yes, it’s the modern equivalent of a loaded gun on the table between two characters in a Western.”
Priorities, people. And Real Life is high on that list. Can’t have mindfulness (Be Here Now, the first of my 7 Core Phrases) if we’re choosing distraction.
Choosing to look at the device, or even waiting until you hcan, is choosing distraction.
ACTION STEP: As often as you can, or as often as you dare, put that smart phone out of sight. Or even (gasp!) leave it at home when you take a walk. Choose real life. You’ll have a few moments of transition (gulp!), and then the calm sets in. Let it.
RESOURCES to learn more:
Screenagers. Eye-opening film and movement, if your kids (or you) are addicted to screens - or getting there.
How to Break Up with Your Phone - a fabulous book. Let it frighten, and then enlighten, you.
KICKASS QUOTE: “Every second spent staring at the screen was a second spent rejecting life.”
― A.D. Aliwat, In Limbo
*What's in a SPARK?
Story
Picture
Action Step
Resources
Kickass Quote
