When was the last time you were having a good conversation with a friend and then right smack in the middle - phone call. "Ah! Hold on. I need to get this." Once you hang up you return to find that your friend has moved on to something else and as you try to return to the conversation you find that it is somewhat derailed.
I have a problem with this. I have developed a problem with this. If my son ran up when you and I are talking and blurts out "Dad, I want a popsicle!" You would think him a rude child who needs to learn when to speak. There is a proper time to ask for a popsicle - I know that I will be spending a great deal of time teaching this concept to my son in the years to come (view Ecc 3:1-11 for a Wisdom Literature perspective). But what we find disdainful in normal face-to-face interaction we find tolerable in phone calls, texts, IM, and even email.
Why?
Why are we willing to break normal, excepted rules of polite conversation for a call? To go back to the opening illustration I would say, "No, you do not need to take that phone call at this exact moment in time." In fact I personally think you only need to go so far as to acknowledge the distraction and then mute your phone. Call the person back! Let them leave a voicemail! Chill out. They can wait 5 minutes.
This instant communication deal we've got going is not all together a good thing. Sure it's convenient and neat but we ought to control it, not have it control us.
Unplug from the idea that you must be able to be reached at any given moment and realize that up until the last dozen years we have not had this type of access to anyone. This is an anomaly in human history.
I am not that old, but I am old enough to remember when pagers (which only doctors seem to have these days) came on the scene. If you don't know of this device, a pager is a little thing that people call to let you know that they need to talk to you. They leave a number and then you call back when you can get to a phone. Now when they first started to infiltrate the population the common line I heard was "only a drug dealer needs people to get ahold of them that much! Why does anybody need that much access to you?"
Within a couple years the drug-dealer-only-device was everywhere. And then a couple years after that the cell phone bomb hit. And now, here we are. Constantly accessible and now all the communication problems of the world are solved and the world is a better place. Ha.
In a world that seems designed to distract there is a great need for discipline and discernment.
I would suggest that there are some questions we ought to ask as we consider our communication. Simple questions like:
> What things in life are worth being distracted by?
(not all things merit the same amount of attention)
> What interruptions should be tolerated?
(not all interruptions can be a good thing, can they? So which of these should be ignored, or at least postponed?)
> Is the constant bombardment and even immediate access to information healthy?
(how much better off are we for our information?)
> Is it good to not have to work to find an answer?
(who truly appreciates what they do not have to work for?)
To not ask such questions is to simply to leave yourself open to be a pawn in the hands of another. And to think that this constantly interrupted lifestyle does not effect how we think would be a rather bizarre conclusion to arrive at.
Christians, allow me to to stir you up by way of reminder: all things can be useful servants for us, yet all things are horrible masters, save God alone. Do not be mastered by phones and media. Use it as a servant and be wise.
