Showing posts with label smart phones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smart phones. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Transitioning to a Smart Phone


I have about ten days left on my cellular contract. The display on my Motorola W510 (a dinosaur of a flip phone) is all but gone. If you leave the phone open it works okay, but if you close it, it will either hang up on the call when you open it, or the display will not work when you open it and you have to power off and back on. The funny thing is my wife's identical phone started doing the same thing a couple of weeks before mine did. Anyway, despite incentives from our smaller market wireless provider, we are going to ride it out. My cousins recently gave me an iPhone 3GS and we've recently freed up some money in our budget to go with smart phones. So that is our plan. But as I am getting excited about the endless connectivity of a smart phone, I also have a few reservations. So, here are the things that I don't want to happen with my smart phone.

I don't want to become a phone addict. I don't want to be that guy who can't go to sleep at night because I'm still checking my Twitter or Facebook. I hope I am able to establish healthy limits on my "phone use" since I'm getting so much more than just a phone.

I don't want to use my phone at the expense of others. I don't want to be sitting at dinner with my wife or with some friends or acquaintences and have my face projected down at my tech toy. I also don't want to be sitting at home with my family totally ignoring them because I can now get on the internet from my recliner.

I don't want to get carried away with my apps and downloads. With all of the apps available to make my phone more functional, I want to make my phone functional, but I don't want to break the bank trying to get every app or ringtone I think I need to make my phone cool or useful.

I don't want to become a tech snob. I posted a blog a few weeks ago about the phenomenon of the Apple snob...and here I am getting an iPhone. But regardless of the brand name on our tech devices, they are not a lot different from cool cars or houses in that we often view them as status symbols. I think tech people often enjoy making people feel dumb by rattling off a bunch of sophisticated lingo that is littered with acronyms. "What, you mean you can't check your email on YOUR phone?" How do you survive?

I don't want to send my work emails to my phone. The iPhone allows me to set up more than one email account. I can also use my email address to streamline different email accounts to go to one address. I will be choosing not to do this for one reason. When I am at home, I want to be at home. I don't want to be checking office emails when I should be visiting with my family. If someone from the church wants to get in touch with me, they can call or text me. If it's an important matter, they shouldn't email, but rather call.

Rhett Smith wrote a great post a couple of days ago on establishing boundaries with Facebook. Most of the same stuff applies here. He suggests having a box or a basket at the house where we turn our tech gadgets off and place them there for a designated period of time. So what boundaries have you had to establish with technology?
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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Establishing Boundaries with Technology


I don't remember how many years ago it was that I was introduced to social media. After email, Instant Messaging was the first thing I guess that was considered social media. I can remember thinking, "You mean, my friends can know when I'm online and they can type things to me right then?" This blew my mind. Then I was introduced to a thing called Myspace, then Facebook, then Twitter, and who knows what's next.
And the more available this stuff becomes, the more it seems to suck us into its vortex. Because all these portals are feeding us information...information that seems very important. This apparent need for this information is just plain addictive. I mean who would want to miss the fact that Aunt Sally's dog in Pennsylvania just had puppies and the pictures are on Facebook. I am usually behind the technology curve. A lot of tech toys that break sales records on their release days don't wind up in my hands until a few months or years have gone by and they have released a newer better version. You can also understand that it took me a while before I made the move to open a Twitter account. After I began tweeting and following some of my favorite friends and organizations, I can remember watching the feed in fear that I was going to miss something. Without realizing it, I was becoming addicted to watching that news stream and for the first couple of weeks, I realized I was not very productive. Fortunately, the newness wore off and I could maintain a Twitter account and still resume the normal functions of my life.

So what I have had to do is establish some boundaries with when, where, and how I utilize technology. Since I am in ministry, tech toys and gadgets are legitimate tools of the trade to get information out there. But I don't want to end up like one of my students who posted on Facebook that she wished people would quit texting her cell phone so she could get some sleep, to which I had to reply "You can turn it off, you know! LOL" So here are the things I have done to be able to have what I hope is a healthy lifestyle,and still be connected to the information world.

1. I don't have a smartphone. There are several reasons why I don't have an iphone, Blackberry, or Droid (man, I want one bad). One is the financial commitment of the data plan. Cindy and I are in Dave Ramsey's Baby Step 2, so we are trying to be really conservative with our money. Also, this allows me to be a husband and father when I'm at home, instead of constantly checking office emails on my cell phone. I am not condemning smart phones or people who use them. I just think there is a danger to having that much connectivity all the time and sooner or later it starts to interfere with our lives. I hope that when I do get a smart phone, it does not become something that is an absolute lifeline for my well-being.

2. I do most of my internet work at the office. Since we both have cell phones, we never had phone lines installed at our home. Since we don't have home phone service, we don't get the bundle rate on home internet, nor do we have the lines that the high-speed internet service uses. So, you can see where this is going. And we're doing just fine. Not having internet at home gives me more time to spend with my wife and family and for stuff I love like tending my garden, taking care of my chickens, or helping my dad with his cows. If I need to know something right away, I can usually find it somewhere or pick up the phone.

3. Realize that written/electronic communication is different than spoken language. While I occasionally might have a conversation with someone through 15 text messages rather than 1 phone call, I still try to pick up the phone now and then. Also, while textual language-whether on a cell phone, email, Facebook, or Twitter-is verbal, it is not auditory. So the nonverbal cues that accompany those words (voice inflection. a chuckle, etc.) are not. Yes, we have LOL and :( to denote how we are feeling, but the bottom line is that print communication is just different. Another thing that we must be aware of is that we often say things in chat or email that we might never say in person because we are too embarrassed or because these things are inappropriate. More than once have I hurt someone's feelings or gave someone a wrong impression because they interpreted something I had typed in a way that was different from the way I meant it.

What things do you do in your life to establish balance and boundaries with technology and information addiction?

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