"The Big Disconnect" by Catherine Steiner-Adair

This is a life-changing book for me.  I have been feeling uncomfortable with the way screens and technology are changing our lives.  Taking over our relationships, our time, our thoughts.  My oldest is turning 12 and got a chromebook from school and it's made me look at what boundaries we need to set with.  Then it made me look at my own habits and wonder how I would like my children to pick up those habits.  How would it change our family relationships?  I didn't like what I was feeling but felt helpless as to what to do about it.  This book has helped put into words that uncomfortable feeling and backed it with research and real-life experiences.  It is inspiring me to look at my own screen habits and to "unplug" or "disconnect" more often and focus on being present.  I've always heard and believed how important it is to be "at the crossroads" with our children.  And I've tried to physically do so- to be home and available when my children come home from school or go to a friend's house or activity, just in case they need to talk or so I can be alert to any cues that something is going on.  I had never thought about how my smart phone/texting/emails/blogging takes me away mentally.  I need to be here mentally at the crossroads as well.

I miss those simple days when we spent our time outside as much as possible without a phone.  I miss the days when my husband and I could have a conversation without one of use scrolling through an article or email or texting on our phones.  I miss those days when I wasn't having 3 texting conversations and trying to listen to my 4 children and follow a recipe on my phone.  I miss those days when I would sew or read a book in the evenings instead of perusing blogs and gardening articles, pinterest, emails, facebook while watching a TV show- only halfway doing anything and getting really nothing done.  I miss the days when I accomplished more because I wasn't checking facebook and email and texting every 30 minutes.  Boy, am I telling on myself now!!

My husband and I were one of the last people I know to get smart phones.  Our 3rd child was about 2 years old when we got them.  That was when my life changed- and not for the better.  Yes, it's nice to text sometimes and have mapquest to tell me where to go, etc.  But is it worth the sacrifice of the rest of me?  Maybe I'm being a little dramatic.  Last year when  had my fourth child and the every two hour 20 minute long feedings began, I started getting on my phone even more.  I was on facebook all the time.  I googled every question I had and filled my head with the "wisdom" of the world wide web.  Now I cringe to think about all that wasted time.  I could have spent that time reading to my 4 year old or reading good books to myself or gazing upon the perfection of my newborn.  I so wish I could take back that time.

This week I have vowed to take back my life!  I am trying to get away from my phone, in particular, and focus on my family and building back those relationships.  This paragraph struck me: "The unlimited possibility of the World Wide Web speaks to all of us with its potential for creativity, new knowledge and new relationships.  It offers us an immediate escape from our daily world where so much of what we do is tedious.  But it also imprisons us in its world of infinite access.  It has added a new workplace boss-- not a person but the expanded job demands made of us round the clock with no regard to our need to be separate from work and connected to our self and our families.  In a much larger sense the medium itself has become an even more demanding boss...it has no boundaries...We feel compelled to connect and we struggle with the guilt, the lost time and the exhaustion that come with it."  SO TRUE!!!  I have greatly enjoyed the relief from taking back my life.  My phone still calls to me.  Sometimes it is hard.  Sometimes I don't know what to do with myself but it feels good to get away from it all. 

I can't possibly write down all the quotes I liked from this book but here are a few so that I can remind myself if I start slipping back to my old ways:

"Our expanded ability to be technologically connected on screens to the world almost anytime, anyplace, is unquestionably pulling us away from making families primary in children's lives and in grown-ups' lives.  Without being aware of it, we've shifted our attention from the primacy of nourishing family connections in the ordinary ways children need it, and turned instead to self-interests, work and other sources of fulfillment. Left to their own devices, our children will do the same."

"Neurologically speaking, empathy takes time and practice to sink in...the speed and superficiality of the tech experience have thinned the neural experiences that create empathy.  In contrast, activities such as reading books or other substantive content create complex arrays of neural pathways, the necessary rich weave of interconnectedness that develops empathy and allows it to deepen."

"We know that from birth to two the brain is learning not just what to think but how to think , and we know that tech and TV pose risks for your baby's healthy development.  With convenience and consumerism driving the conversation, empirical research can seem so remote, so out of step with what's popular...When we give babies stimulants instead of calming attention and offer tech distractions from ordinary life instead of guidance through it, we teach them at a very young age to deal with life's ups and downs by plugging into external sources to self-regulate rather than develop those skills within."

"As parents, we must find the social and emotional head space to calm ourselves and react to all of these minimoments in nuanced ways.  In our everyday interactions with our children, from doing errands to playtime to bedtime, we are teaching the same thing repeatedly-- self-regulation and social and emotional skills-- but we have to be able to focus on these tasks with genuine interest and presence."