3 Things I Learned From a Week Without Screens
As part of?our church's Lenten campaign, my family and I just spent the last week abstaining from screens for purposes of entertainment. (No tv, blogs, streaming video, etc. Unfortunately, I still had to use email for work, etc. Wouldn't that be nice?....)Here are 3 things I learned from the experience. The 1st is obvious and expected, the 2nd and 3rd surprised me:
- I'm a lot more productive when I'm not tied to my phone or computer.
- My stress level is lower when I'm not absorbing content from the internet, because
- Much internet content focuses on fomenting outrage. We are a people of grievance and offense. A friend of mine called me midweek and asked me about something that had occurred that had gotten the internet outraged and it was a relief to say that I knew nothing about it and didn't care. I don't need more petty outrage in my life. If you took away tweets and blog posts and articles that express offense or outrage--and took away pornography, sadly--how much of the internet would be left?
It's startling how quickly something that's clearly not a necessity--screens for entertainment--can shape our ways of living and interacting. What about you--how are screens shaping how you live, work, or parent?