Recently I heard a talk in church where one of our leaders was discussing how much time people spend online these days. He referenced the fact that Satan will never have a body and consequently wants us to learn to enjoy having a “disembodied life.” He talked about how many people are in fact living disembodied lives. There are people who pass up on meeting real flesh and blood people in order to keep commitments to people in a gaming community. I was reminded of the couple who let their baby die while they took care of a virtual baby. I thought of the man whose new bride was upset because her groom was spending all his time with his virtual wife.
I have obviously not taken my online life to such extremes, but I do catch myself thinking about how I’m going to blog about an experience rather than just enjoying the moment itself. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about how I can summarize an event in a witty facebook blurb. Once when videotaping my kids, I wanted to cut the video short so that it would be easy to post. All of a sudden I was struck by the fact that I was filming my kids with the intent to post, rather than in order to preserve a memory for us as a family. I was disappointed in myself. I started to wonder if I was spending more time blogging about spending time with my kids than actually being with them.
Then just recently I’ve had different friends comment about how reading other people’s blogs makes them feel badly about themselves. Not only do we compare ourselves to what we observe others do firsthand, but now we compare ourselves to other people’s blogs where they post all the awesome things they do (and leave out most of the bad stuff).
On top of everything else, tonight I went to a meeting with a member of the local police department who spoke on internet safety. I guess you could say he scared me straight.
With all of this in mind, I’ve decided to make some changes. To start with, I’m going to take a blog break. I’m not going to post on my blog or read any one else’s blog for the remainder of the month of September. When I start posting again, my blog will be private. So if you still want to read it, send me your e-mail. I’m also going to take myself off facebook for the remainder of the month. When I come back to facebook, my friends list will be significantly shorter. I’m reducing it down to only my close family and friends. I figure I can still send messages to anyone else and they can message me.
I know this will be inconvenient for some people and I know it will be hard for me. But I think that for a variety of reasons, it will be a good move for me and my family. I’ll still have my e-mail and cell phone, so I won’t be off the grid entirely. It's amazing how the internet has taken over my life in the past three years!
