Get Off Your Phone and Talk to Someone!

Remember the telephone ad campaign that said "Reach out and touch someone?" It was a very sweet ad campaign by AT&T to encourage people to use their telephones to call loved ones across the country.

Today advertising to get people to use phones is unnecessary. Phone use is here to stay. But we all know hardly anyone uses the phone to talk on, but we text, browse, play games, and use social media apps.

AT&T had a long ad campaign
with the slogan,
"Reach out and touch someone."

There are no doubt a million benefits to the razor sharp technology that keeps the world at our fingertips. Alexander Graham Bell
would be shocked and delighted.

But are cell phones and tablets getting in the way of quality interpersonal communication and relationships? I'm not talking about all the GOOD reasons to keep that cell phone handy. There are many of those. And I'm not writing this to make anyone feel guilty over how they use phones.

What I'm concerned with here is encouraging people to get off YouTube, texting, Snapchat, Google, and talk to the people nearby.

I like to joke that in a few years babies will be born with a cell phone implanted in their palms, because it seems that kids have grown a device that cannot be detached from their hands.

There is tons of advice, blog posts, news stories, etc. on how to curb cell phone and technology use. But I want to encourage people to just do it. I know that for some people they do use the Internet to create a community with like-minded people in disparate parts of the world or start groups with common goals or information sharing. I'm not talking about the good uses of technology. The technology itself is not bad. In my teen years, it was the amount of time we all spent in front of the TV that was bemoaned. TV is not bad. TV is not a moral object, but how we use TV, just as how we use our phones than can be labeled healthy or unhealthy.

MaineGirl on a rotary phone, circa 1980.

Did you know there is a Center for Internet Technology Addiction? Yup! It was started by a Dr. Greenleaf and is located in West Hartford, Connecticut, and what does it have but a long list of online tests you can take and be rated on your addiction level. I took the cell phone test and rated a 4, which was considered on the verge of addiction! Me? I hate using my phone more than necessary!**

Dr. Greenleaf likens cell phone use to playing the slot machine. This is a comparison you may have heard before. We type something and our cell phone rewards us with dings, beeps, and ring tones, and surprise, you have an instantaneous reward of a "like," comment, or response.

(Curious if you are addicted to your screens? Take Dr. Greenleaf's tests here: https://virtual-addiction.com/addiction-screening-tools/).

I'm not going to relate all the information found out there but how in the world do we curb our appetite for our cell phone that do everything but the dishes (now that I'd like to see!)?

What are your best ideas and most successful stories at disconnecting from technology and reconnecting with a person face to face or voice to voice?

Reconnect with the world around
 you. Take a tech Sabbath!

Me? I just keep talking. I get a little edgy and pushy and demand those around me answer my questions. I ask them to put their phone down. I ask for attention at dinner. I even did an experiment where I confiscated the phones before the rest of the house was awake and locked them in a vehicle. (That was an uncomfortable experiment!)

Some people take technology Sabbaths where they go off all social media, internet, gaming for a set period of time in order to reconnect with the world immediately around them.
(Curious about the tech Sabbath, click here, read, and then shut down your device! https://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/time-for-a-tech-sabbath)

The biggest thing we are losing is lack of eye contact. Its hard to look someone in the eye if a majority of communication happens while looking at a screen.

The best thought is just shut it off, put it away, turn it down, and look your family and friends in the eye and have a conversation without a phone between you. Just do it!

What do you do to reconnect with the real world around you, without a screen?
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More info on cell phone/technology addiction

Common Sense Media stats on teens and cell phone addiction from 2016: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/news/press-releases/new-report-finds-teens-feel-addicted-to-their-phones-causing-tension-at --this article is from THREE years ago!

Information about internet addiction from a rehab center in Washington state. https://www.northpointwashington.com/blog/internet-addiction-quiet-common-form-compulsive-disorder/

And there's more. If the Betty Ford Center is talking about it then it must be real:  https://www.hazeldenbettyford.org/articles/fcd/teen-technology-addiction.