Cheesy title, but you know, it has a ring to it. One of the things that I have been thinking through a lot lately (now that I have a little more time to think since school is done) is how I structure my blog. And I’ve decided that I need to give at least one day a week to technology.
Why? For several reasons: 1) It inundates our lives (that’s a good enough reason there); 2) we use it constantly, and I’m finding that we need to think through our use of it; 3) how do we think through our use of it theologically; 3) i’m wanting to think through these reasons and more since I will be the presenter at Blog World Expo on technology, blogging and social networking in college ministry.
Some days I may post about my theological reflections on technology (obviously that is consuming my reading list below these days), or about my frustration with it, or about cool tech gadgets such as the beautiful i-Phone by Apple which of course I don’t have, nor am I ready to cough up the money to get one. It may take many different avenues.
Today, I just want to reflect on something very shortly, and my reflection comes out of reading Mark Driscoll’s blog and some of the things he has been posting lately.
Last year Mark had a phenomenal post called Death by Ministry. Such a good name. And I’ve noticed that he has been writing more on that issue.
You can read his three posts below:
All these posts are great. Posts 1 and 3 are what really caught my eye thought. Post 2 talks about the family of the pastor and ministry and none of those statistics were new to me as I have grown up in and around ministry. But something jumped out at me regarding 1 and 2. And it was the infiltration of technology in the writing. In post 1 Driscoll lists some fascinating practices of many successful business executives, CEO’s, etc. and one of the things that they tend to rely on is technology and especially emails and their Blackberry’s. And then as you read post 3 and what causes stress it’s not shocking that stress is often caused by constant stimulation and what he dubs the 24 hour lifestyle.
Correlation: Technology=Stress
Most of you are saying duh. And of course there are extremes to this on either spectrum, but we all have stopped and probably asked the question, “Should I really be looking at my phone driving down the highway, while texting a response at the same time?” At least I have asked myself that question. That’s when I knew I was addicted.
About 6-8 months ago I was talking on this blog about getting a new phone and some of you sent in good suggestions. I wanted a PDA. So I thought about the Treo and the Sidekick, but I ultimately ended up with Blackberry Pearl, which I love and am addicted to.
How addicted?
–It’s on me all day (in my hand or pocket)
–I look at it non-stop to see if I missed a call, text, email
–When the alarm on it goes off in the morning, turning it on, and the emails roll in I lay in bed and scroll through them all before I get up
–I text and read emails on the road
–I play Brickbreaker while I’m waiting to meet up with students or friends
I could go on but it’s all quite pathetic. But in the last several months I have noticed the correlation in my life between technology (specifically my phone) and stress, specifically the stress or worry that sort of lasts all day because I’m reading and communicating all day.
How healthy is it to read email at 11pm or later, just before you go to bed. Talk about bringing stress into sleep? Or how healthy is is that checking email is the first thing I do in the morning?
What about you?
Are you tied to your phone/PDA? Have you thought about getting rid of it? Why or why not?
Am I believing the lie that I need technology to stay plugged in to what is going on so that I can be successful and a good employee, pastors, etc.?
