If you look around in any waiting room nowadays, you notice people doing one of several things, but mainly one: they are using some kind of screen (phone, tablet, computer, TV) to pass the time. While our electronic devices are necessary for work, communication, connection, and re-creation, at what cost does it come? I believe we sacrifice something of ourselves on the altar of our “keeping busy”. Here is what I think we gain when we turn off the screens in our life:
- Time – we gain time the think and take back our minds. Our minds are actually very busy places when we’re not in front of a screen. Turning off our screen gives us much needed time to think and process the events in our lives.
- Calm – we gain the ability to calm ourselves naturally and take back our sense of peace.
- The Present – we gain the ability to take back the present moment. We can give real time to our children, our spouse / significant other, or friends and colleagues
- Priorities – we take back our real priorities. We can take time to do those projects we’ve been putting off.
- Liberty – we take back some of OUR time and freedom from habit-forming and often time-wasting apps, videos, games, and advertisements
- Creativity – we take back our ability to entertain ourselves without the need of an electronic device
- Connection – we take back the realness in our relationships, by having real conversations, not just endless text-based exchanges that go nowhere.
Ultimately when you turn off your screens, you recapture yourself, your own sense of identity, and uniqueness. And in a world that seeks to fit us into categories, templates, norms, standards, baselines, and conformity, we recapture our individual sense of who we are apart from our screen.
Here is a challenge for you and I. For 7 days, during those times where you normally pull out your phone (like a waiting room), try doing something else entirely – think, read, doodle, journal, color, talk to someone. This, of course, doesn’t include the screens you need for work, but at every other time, try to go without a screen. Let me know how it worked out for you.
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to turn off this screen, so I can go play with my kids.
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