There it is. Another terrible news story about violence, this time committed by two twelve-year-old girls in Waukesha, WI, a city David and I once called home. Their schoolmate, another twelve-year-old girl, was lured into a wooded area and brutally stabbed multiple times in an attempt to KILL HER. The victim very nearly died but is now recovering in the hospital. Why did this happen? Why did these young girls do this? Oh, apparently it was in response to a challenge made by a fictitious character on a website.
What is happening in our society? Every week I hear another gruesome story like this, sometimes multiple deaths, and so often very young people are holding the murder weapons. It's bad enough when I hear an adult doing something so atrocious, but when it's someone young I have to wonder -- what happened to the innocent youths of yesterday? Childhood is supposed to be carefree and fun and even a little bit gullible, isn't it? Our parents were there to watch out for us; they could worry about the bad guys while we played in the sandbox.
I truly believe that our disconnected and self-centered society is at least partly to blame. It seems our young children are footing the bill for the wonderful convenience of modern communication. Facebook and Twitter and email and internet are all excellent, sometimes convenient communication tools (I'm using it now), but I hear far too many stories of young people AND adults abusing technology, being "plugged in" 24/7, okay, maybe 16/7 to allow for sleep, but that's still too many hours to be plugged in! And "selfies," obsessively posted every three seconds, are only one example of how superficial and self-centered our society is becoming.
What are we losing by building this kind of society, its heart frozen under voluminous layers and layers of pixels and high-speed data? Everything! Indeed, the very characteristics which make us human! Compassion, patience, love, loyalty, effort, sincerity... those traits have virtually disappeared from our conversations because they cannot be fully exhibited in a few typed out words on a monitor. They have to be FELT in an embrace, HEARD in a friend's heartbeat, TASTED in someone's tears.
We need more REAL human connections every day, real face-to-face meetings, real hugs, real smiles (vs. smiley icons flashing on our screens). Please... everyone think about this.
Why not pick a day this week and make it your unplugged day?
Even if it's just this one week. Do it. If you are a parent, take your kids' phones and computers for one day, and give them plenty of love and heart-to-heart chats in place of those gadgets. If you are an employer, set up Email-Free Fridays or have an "Unplugged Employee Picnic" and/or let your employees go home an hour early one day this week and tell them it's for REAL face-to-face family bonding time. Everyone can do their part! We can all lead by example. We can all be unplugged more of the time. It's a change, but we will discover something far more valuable in its place, real human connection. The next time you have the urge to "message," "text" or "email" someone, can't you go see them instead or at the very least - make the effort and pick up the phone so you can hear their voice, share their life, breath by breath?
We can do this!! We all have the power to change our world for the better. Please, please, please WAKE UP WORLD!
If you agree, I beg you to share this, print it out and hand it to someone you love or better yet, a stranger. Or if you're still plugged in, repost it with or without your own comments on your FB page and then do something even more meaningful by actually LIVING it from this day forward. Go talk to someone face-to-face. Give them a hug. Give them part of yourself in a real human connection.
I love this video, "Look Up, posted on YouTube. Really sums things up nicely for me...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY
2 comments:
I agree that we need to have a good BALANCE of real F2F and internet. We can't just do away with the internet and cell phones, but we CAN do a better job of BEING THERE in PERSON, whenever feasibly possible. It is a decision we each have to make for ourselves and it will take practice to make it a habit. Have you seen the "Look Up" video plea on YouTube? I posted it yesterday to my FB page...same deal
Thanks, Dinee. I loved this and posted the video link above. It sums it up perfectly.
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