Step away from the device…

As a web developer I spend a lot of time in front of my iDevice of the hour. Well OK, most of my day and some of my nights you won’t find me looking at some form of display. I use my phone as an alarm, a GPS, grocery list, along with, well, being a phone. What amazed me is how many people are the same and how quickly this trend is growing. I had a 7 year old ask me for an iPhone for Christmas.
I’ve seen a game going around social media sites involving your smart phone. Place your phone on the table and the first one to pick up their phone picks up the bar tab. I thought it was ingenious and then I realized how ingrained it is now to be interacting with some form of technology on a consistent basis. Why do we have to create a game to make everyone interact with one another? I’ve seen conversations evolve into phone circles. No talking, just friends sitting staring at a screen until someone brings up a topic or something happens. I’m guilty as charged. Plus, everything is shiny, plastic, glass, metal, smooth. So much sensory deprivation! Life is meant to be touched,
Now maybe this makes me an old fuddy-duddy, but how about for once we turn off the phone and engage in some “old school” interaction? Instead of Fruit Ninjas and Angry Birds break out the board games and cards. In my free time I spend an evening playing games like Scattegories and Munchkin with good friends. I find it to be a great brain exercise that is way more engaging than the next hot game app plus I get to write with a pencil! We come together and catch up on each others lives, talk issues and rant about things too deep for whatever the character limit on Facebook is for the month (and definitely too big for Twitter). In the summer, I try to get away into the woods where there is no cell service, but even this is becoming harder to do.
As we move forward with this “digital revolution” remember to appreciate where we came from. As my dad would say, “Go outside and play. Try not to get hit by a car.”