Meanings and Musings...on Technological Dependence

A few things happened to me yesterday. I had the final show of one of the opera seasons I'm doing (and went to "The Library", a themed lounge bar, for some divine desserts afterwards).  The trumpet I bought online arrived in the mail, so I can officially start learning now!

And, the bad news, my computer charger broke, so my computer ran out of battery life and died.

I'm currently typing this on a computer in a library. I've ordered a new charger and it should arrive in a few days...but in the meantime I am a bit ashamed to admit the feeling of uneasiness I have at the lack of a computer...even though some of it is legitimate (difficulty in submitting applications saved on my computer, inability to listen to CD's, studying German vocabulary in a computer application, having to actually write down in advance details for a new piano teaching job starting tomorrow...etc).

My current predicament got me thinking about how we are so dependent on technology, and how many of us probably spend 2-3 hours a day using our computers, or watching television, or on our phones. I was curious enough to work it out - 3 hours a day equates to 1095 hours a year, or about 45 days per year...if we live to 80 that ends up being 10 years of our life spent on technological activities! And with 2 hours a day (still basing this on living 80 years) it's 6.6 years, and with 1 hour that goes down to 3.3 years.

That's entire YEARS of our life devoted to an activity where we remain sitting in one spot, reading or watching or surfing some virtual reality. Isn't that incredible? Just think of the imaginary conversations that might occur in heaven between people before technology and people of today...the disbelief that people from the past would have in reaction to spending that much time doing something with no active involvement! The number of "years wasted per life" is only going up as technology advances.

Technology...it can both help capture and
cause you to miss views like this!

I didn't have a cell phone for my first 3 years in NZ. Then I got one in my second year of university. Now I feel as if I couldn't do without one. It's amazing how quickly we come to depend on these things in our lives. (I can still do without Facebook and the technology of social networking though - more on that later!)

Sure, times are changing. People date online, work online, read books online, shop online, all the time. This is the new way of life. You may need a cell phone to have a job, as your employers will contact you this way.

But we should all try to limit our time using technology, to minimize the years of our lives wasted, and enable ourselves to go and do more of the things that don't use technology. The best thing to do is use cell phones and computers to facilitate social interactions, rather than replace them! It'd be good for all of us to spend more time reading, interacting with each other, exercising, and learning and developing new hands-on skills that actually impress people with tangible results - like art, music, dance, carpentry, gardening, traveling (or earning/saving the money to travel)...the world is your oyster!

I am going to try to have a total limit of 2 hours per day using technology. (And that's still over 30 full days a year online!) This will include writing, email, studying, working, plus all the leisure activities like TV/movies, surfing the web, reading blogs, etc.
In weeks where I need an exception, I'll also consider this a weekly limit of 14 hours if I am planning to have a movie night or really need to study for something coming up or am working on a big project. But it does ensure that not every night becomes movie night, as it can tend to do, especially when you and your friends or family get into that habit together. Try doing other things when you've got company too, playing games, having conversations, reading books, or learning and working on new skills together.

I don't want to have given years of my life to technology. Do you?