On Why I'm Reducing my Smartphone usage for the month of August.

It started a few years ago. We were at a Chinese restaurant, and I spotted a family of four sitting around a table. They were waiting for their food to arrive. The dad was reading something on his iPad, holding it close to his face. The mom was scrolling on her Blackberry. The older daughter was taking selfies and texting her friends on her iPhone, and her younger brother was playing some game on his Nintendo DS. There was no interaction there whatsoever. Sometimes the kids would look up and ask their parents a question, and their parents would mindlessly answer with a monosyllable and a wave of their hands. I remember thinking, "Wow..this is so...sad. If I have a family someday, I hope we aren't like that."

Then, last year, when I was two months pregnant, I read this article detailing the potentially damaging psychological effects on children who are over-exposed to electronic media. I thought about many of the university students with whom I work; some who are fluent digital natives, who have no trouble with a conversation via text, but who have trouble looking me in the eye and holding down a face-to-face conversation.

I determined back then that if I wanted my child to grow up with the ability to have deep conversations and meaningful relationships, I would have to be intentional about creating that environment at home.

Since giving birth, I've been putting it off for a few months. Let's be honest. I love my child, but I am not a "kid-person." Newborn babies are hardly riveting. I survived that first month by watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine on Netflix three times in English and once in French. When Elliette was up every hour in those first few hazy weeks, youtube and Netflix were my BFFs. And even now that she is sleeping through the night, my phone is my constant companion during those long stretches of breastfeeding.

But a few experiences this past month made me think now is the time to make a change in my life.

The first experience was the release of Pokemon Go. Let me be frank. I think Pokemon Go is dumb. I have no interest in playing it, but a large amount of my friend network has started playing it. I watched as a dear friend (lol..you know who you are!!) came to visit me from more than an hour away, but instead of deep and meaningful conversations, for much of the day, she walked slightly (or sometimes very far) behind me whilst catching Pokemon and even ran into me with her stroller. We still had fun, but a part of me felt sad at the missed opportunity. Then, I watched as I sat in a park with friends having a picnic; half the group went off to catch Pokemon. The rest of us engaged with each other in a conversation about our lives. I'm not saying that people can't engage while playing Pokemon Go, but as psychology has shown, multitasking really isn't actually multitasking; multitasking is actually serial tasking. You can do anything for the glory of God (even play Pokemon Go!), but at different times and different places, some things may or may not be more meaningful than augmented reality.

The second experience was when my daughter, aged 6 months, started reaching for my phone. She's becoming less and less blob-like and is starting to notice things. I wondered what she noticed about me. And I realized that the first thing my daughter would ever notice about me is not my love for Jesus or His People, but my love for my phone. I go everywhere with that thing. It's with me when I breastfeed her, it's with me when she's playing on the floor. It's my constant companion day and night.  I don't want her to know how to swipe to unlock before she knows how to speak and to engage with the people around her.

With those experiences in mind, I decided that I needed to limit my smartphone usage. So, a few weeks ago I decided that starting August 1, for a month (because I'm a wuss and noncommittal like that..), I would restrict my smartphone usage to the times when Elliette is sleeping and evenings. This means that between the hours of 11am-7pm each day, I will only be using my phone to respond to texts and check social media when Elliette is napping. I will respond to phone calls at any time. Elliette goes to bed each day at 10:30pm, so there is a 3-4 hour period where she is awake and where I also have the freedom to use my phone. I don't want her growing up in a vacuum where smartphones don't exist; I want her to see me using my smartphone responsibly.

When friends come over, we have a little smart phone coop in which we are requesting that they put their phone. We want Elliette to see us engaging in meaningful and deep conversations with our peers without serial tasking. We want her to see that face-to-face relationships are prioritized above social media and augmented reality.

This isn't a legalistic thing. It isn't an opportunity for me to judge how others spend their time or what they do with their phones. But it IS an opportunity for me to relinquish a subtle idol that is robbing me of meaningful relationships with my family, friends and Jesus.

John Piper said it well:

"One of the great uses of Twitter and Facebook will be to prove at the Last Day that prayerlessness was not from lack of time."

Amen to that.