My contract with AT&T is up in a few days, and, because of all the dropped calls I seem to have in my house, I swore I would switch back to Verizon as soon as I could. (We don’t have a land line.) I figured I would purchase the Verizon iPhone and simply change services.
But I also recently bought an iPad and carry a monthly data charge for that. So I’ve been wondering…should I carry two devices with data charges? Yes, I know. The iPad is big. Who’s going to pull that out when a smaller phone will do the trick? And I need to be connected all the time, right?
I’m not so sure anymore. My focus lately has been learning how to balance my time, be more in the moment, and less “on.” My tendency to click, click, click means I don’t pause to reflect as much as I should. And, even more, I don’t allow myself to be bored.
Standing in line at the grocery store, I check email. Waiting for the vet to come back into the office, I pop twitter up to read and respond to the latest. Riding along in the car to Richmond, I click on my iPhone Kindle app and read the next chapter in “The Social Animal” by David Brooks. Like one of Pavlov’s dogs, I am becoming conditioned to respond to the rewards of consuming information wherever and whenever I want it.
In a post on BNET by Laurie Tarkan, Genevieve Bell, the director of interaction and experience research at Intel, said engaging with mobile devices “is the promise that you’ll never be bored again, you’ll never have to be anywhere without something to do.”
And, yet, there is a downside.
“Boredom is linked to creativity. You have your best thoughts in the shower, when driving, painting fences, and weeding the yard,” she says. Other researchers have stated that boredom is central to learning and creativity.
On the flip side, when you’re constantly consuming information via your devices, you stop processing the information and developing your own ideas. You have less time to think about what you’re consuming. To be effective in most jobs, you need to stop and reflect……
Tarkan lists several ways to be bored, and they make sense. For example, she says “stop being obsessed with doing,” and “be bored with others.”
But, sadly, I’m thinking I may need a more disciplined approach, and that may mean letting the iPhone go. It’s not that I don’t find value in all my curating and consuming. I do. But I’m wondering if spending less time with my face in a device will ultimately yield deeper, more reflective thinking and create sharpened connections to what I am learning.
Anticipating some sense of loss, I am trying to prepare for this. And then I think, “Geesh, it’s just a phone!”
Does any of this resonate? Do you allow yourself to be bored?
Susan Carter Morgan
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Yes,a thousand times yes! This post resonates deeply with me as I have that same tendency to over-connect. I swore I would never get a smart phone, got one and now am constantly checking. I am truly thinking of staging an intervention for myself. I never sit and just sit, I am always multitasking, just checking in and it is like a disease. Thank you fro writing this, you are not alone, and you should be worried, I certainly am.
There is a deep pushback with the word boredom. I think that is because it has, at least for me, a negative meaning. I think a better word is LEISURE. Moments of leisure, for me gives me the reflective time (I call it chewing) to ponder some of the amazing professional items I digest over the given day. Its the PONDERING that sparks my creative juices … to listen to the gentle voice within … to be able to see the “path” down the creativity road that my spirit is leading me onward.
I totally agree that being plugged “in” 24/7 often makes our minds cluttered and blocks the creative flow. I have made personal boundaries when I am not plugged in or schedule on a daily basis my “chew time”. Its the consistency in this experience that has increased my creativity and have left me “charged”.
@Pernille We are all facing this and having to make personal decisions about time, aren’t we? Being mindful and aware rather than simply constantly responding is important.
@Sister Geralyn Ah, interesting. The word “boredom” does connote negativity, yet it is in our boredom that the brain shifts and works, doesn’t it? I guess leisure does the same, though in leisure our minds can be active and attuned to an activity. I guess I fall back on awareness, again. And I love the idea of pondering, which sets our brain activity in all kinds of directions. I had a friend who used to start her class each day with a “ponder this” question. She and the students had the best discussions:)