Happy VD Day

(ha, Yea, theres an extra D there, I like saying it that way, always makes me chuckle.)

I'm wearing red today, with my gold hearts.

Yesterday at dinner, I went to the resto washroom and there was a posted ad on the back of the washroom stall door. So I sat there reading.... which maybe made for some awkward extra time in the loo....

It read:

A selfie, like any photograph, interrupts experience to mark the moment. In this, it shares something with all the other ways we break up our day, when we text during class, in meetings, at the theater, at dinners with friends. And yes, at funerals, but also more regularly at church and synagogue services. We text when we are in bed with our partners and spouses. We watch our political representatives text during sessions.

Technology doesn’t just do things for us. It does things to us, changing not just what we do but who we are. The selfie makes us accustomed to putting ourselves and those around us “on pause” in order to document our lives. It is an extension of how we have learned to put our conversations “on pause” when we send or receive a text, an image, an email, a call. When you get accustomed to a life of stops and starts, you get less accustomed to reflecting on where you are and what you are thinking.

We don’t experience interruptions as disruptions anymore. But they make it hard to settle into serious conversations with ourselves and with other people because emotionally, we keep ourselves available to be taken away from everything.

These days, when people are alone, or feel a moment of boredom, they tend to reach for a device. In a movie theater, at a stop sign, at the checkout line at a supermarket and, yes, at a memorial service, reaching for a device becomes so natural that we start to forget that there is a reason, a good reason, to sit still with our thoughts: It does honor to what we are thinking about. It does honor to ourselves. 

It is not too late to reclaim our composure. I see the most hope in young people who have grown up with this technology and begin to see its cost. They respond when adults provide them with sacred spaces (the kitchen, the family room, the car) as device-free zones to reclaim conversation and self-reflection. - NY Times "The Documented Life" Sherry Turkle Dec 15, 2013. 

......as awkwardly, anti-social and introvert as I am, apart from my "alone reflections", surprisingly I always welcome a good connected conversation..... REAL Connection is key. Look for it. Maybe an appropriate topic for this day.....