beWARM

The results of a recent study: people are so dependent on their mobile phones that they check them an average of 150 times a day.

Impossible, I thought.  Preposterous, even.

How could we pay that much attention to an inanimate object barely the size of our hand?

Have our mobile devices become our life managers?  And how dare we let them?

So I started counting.

All tolled, my statistics put me in the lower percentiles of phone-checkers.  The fact that I don’t have Facebook friends and am not a Tweeter may have helped me here.

However, the frequency of my glancing was still a bit unsettling.

And, truthfully, this Continuous Partial Attention makes my head spin sometimes, diverting my focus from the people around me whose presence I value far more than a ringing, dinging machine.

Research has shown that excessive mobile phone use can erode relationships and even become an addiction – a sad commentary on how technology has attained such power over us.

Though I wax on about this vise-grip of devices, I have to admit I am at a loss when my phone is out of commission. (Aren’t we all?)

It has become my alarm clock, watch, daily organizer, yearly calendar, photo album, list-keeper, personal messenger…and the list goes on.

My challenge is to look less, and see more…of people, nature…life.

The world will still turn if I don’t read that message at the very moment it appears.

And here’s another thought: how many times a day do I think about God, or send Him a prayer message?

What about giving Him my Complete Purposeful Attention?

I’m aiming for the highest percentile on that one…