Somehow all of this seems to be attached to the eStudy blog I have been doing the past several years. We took July off as is typical but that month out of daily study of God's word knocked me completely off balance. (I have commented more on this in today's eStudy blog post.) August has us all back in the study and amazingly, I feel like myself again. Also amazingly, I felt some inspiration to write. Whew, I was afraid I had lost it forever!
Now for onLoving: "Looking Up"
A day ago, a friend forwarded a video to me titled, "Look Up". It is a great thought provoking video about the use of electronics and technology and what that has done to us. It conjured up thoughts within me as well and led to today's blog.
A few minutes ago, I went to Red Box to return a video I rented yesterday. As I was driving down the main street of the parking lot there was truck parked in the on coming lane leaving me the right of way. There was a crosswalk and a stop sign for the driver coming toward me. The person saw me and made a very quick non stop so they could beat me to the truck so they would not have to wait for me to pass. However, doing that made me have to wait for them to pass. Obviously they were more of a VIP than me or perhaps they we in some state of emergency. Gosh, what could it be? That moment brought many thoughts to the forefront of my mind.
My first thought was that we have become so NOT concerned with each other. We have become more self focused than ever. It used to be standard practice to let a pedestrian cross in front of you, even if there was no crosswalk. Today as a pedestrian, I have had to stand in the rain and icy cold weather while many people in dry and heated cars ignore me so they will not have to wait for me to cross. I believe we used to do that because we felt a connection with most other people and actually felt good about being kind and thoughtful.
Today we communicate via email, texts and leave voicemails hoping the person we are calling will not answer so we don't have to actually talk to them. We even seem to look at our phones more than we look at each other. We hardly ever communicate using words or ever hear each other's voices. We are falling head over heals in a movement of isolation which is breeding lack of concern and interest in others. It has overwhelmingly become an "all about me" world.
When people are having a tough time, do we really care? Do we brush others off so we can be on our way to whatever it is that is more important than a person who is struggling? Our kids, our spouses and our friends should consider themselves blessed because we have given them a few minutes of our time. What? Is this for real?
I was talking to a friend who owns a martial arts studio. He told me when he asked the kids in his classes what they would most like to do, their most common response is to spend more time having fun with mom or dad. Shame on us!
We are being lulled into a state of mindlessness by shiny, glowing non living things. When I see people so attached to their phone, computers, pads, televisions of whatever, I think of crows and raccoons. These creatures are attracted to shiny, sparkly things and will steal them and horde them. They have no purpose but they are entranced by them. It seems we are not so different. We just have to have the new thing because it is new and has two more buttons or is bigger or whatever. I am sure you can debate that you use them for work and safety reasons but let me ask you, how much time are you on these devices for these reasons versus fooling around? I believe we all know the answer to that.
Putting all that aside, the part that is really disturbing is that to a large degree we have lost care and concern for one another. Acts of kindness, acts of caring and compassion have to have diminished greatly in recent years. Letting someone over in traffic, letting a pedestrian cross, noticing someone during lunch that seems to be struggling, seeing a neighbor who could use a hand with a project, taking time to visit someone who is ill are things we just don;t have time for. We sit in our homes or in our cars or in our offices completely oblivious to how we might be kind, courteous or loving to another person.
"I just don't have time!" is the cry.
Step away from the phone, TV or pad is my reply.
"But I have to have it, cannot live without it", I hear you say.
You can do it, walk away and go out with the kids and play!
The sad thing we have sadly given a higher priority to these non living things than the living things. Have they become idols? In a sense they have. We go crazy if we can't find ours. We give lots and lots of money to possess one. When we are sitting with another person and it calls to you, can you resist cutting off the conversation to see what it wants? Unlikely!
The other thing I think of when I see the way most people respond to their phone is the study in behavior called Pavlov's Dog. (Below from SimplyPsychology.org)
"In his experiment, Pavlov used a bell as his neutral stimulus. Whenever he gave food to his dogs, he also rang a bell. After a number of repeats of this procedure, he tried the bell on its own. As you might expect, the bell on its own now caused an increase in salivation.
So the dog had learned an association between the bell and the food and a new behavior had been learnt. Because this response was learned (or conditioned), it is called a conditioned response. The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus.
Pavlov found that for associations to be made, the two stimuli had to be presented close together in time. He called this the law of temporal contiguity. If the time between the conditioned stimulus (bell) and unconditioned stimulus (food) is too great, then learning will not occur.
Pavlov and his studies of classical conditioning have become famous since his early work between 1890-1930. Classical conditioning is "classical" in that it is the first systematic study of basic laws of learning / conditioning.
Summary
To summarize, classical conditioning (later developed by John Watson) involves learning to associate an unconditioned stimulus that already brings about a particular response (i.e. a reflex) with a new (conditioned) stimulus, so that the new stimulus brings about the same response."
I submit that we have developed a conditioned response to our phones and other devices that alert us to messages, downloads, calls, texts or whatever. Now most of us may not salivate but no matter where we are, it rings and we jump. We stop talking, eating, walking, reading or pretty much anything we are doing to respond to it's summoning us to it's need for our attention, even if we rudely ignore the breathing creature right in front of us.
Look up and notice those around you. Put that thing in your pocket, return to loving people rather than devices and help take the world back to the place where it let's people standing in the freezing rain cross in from of you while you are sitting in a heated and dry car.
Oh by the way, if you should look up while worshipping your "device" would God be smiling back at you?