How Did You Spend Yesterday?

By Elizabeth Foss
Herald Columnist
(From the issue of 2/26/04)

Several years ago, I wrote a column about telephones and televisions and how they detracted from family life and relationships. Looking back, that column seems simplistic. Since then, we’ve been introduced to cell phones, DVDs, personal computers and the Internet. There are handheld game computers, instant messaging and PDAs. Recently, a mother on an online forum wondered whether her children would be significantly different if she handed them a book like The American Boy’s Handybook instead of something electronic when they were bored. Would our children be better off being raised on a 1950s family farm?

If a child is used to plopping in front of a screen when he’s bored, I’d say he’d be significantly different if she handed him this book or another like it. The book is full of great ideas — perfect for thinking and making and doing and being — and not limited to boys at all. Any tomboy worth her salt will want a crack at The Handybook. There are 16 kinds of kites to make, instructions on camping without a tent and a great section on snowball warfare. A boy would be using his whole body, his brain and his imagination. It’s a far cry from any electronic adventure.
We had a little experiment going here in January. Just after Christmas, I noticed that Nicholas had started biting the cuff of his shirts. He seemed very stressed (and he’s just three). When I looked at what was different, all I could see was that they had watched many more movies during the holidays than usual. So, we cut out television and movies and limited the older boys’ video games to 30 minutes and only after Nicholas was asleep. What happened? Creative play. Lots and lots and lots of creative play. Binge reading at night. More cooking and baking. What happened? Real life. Real learning.
My oldest son’s "Instant Message" communication habit is a bit more difficult. I think it is imperative for us to limit screen time for our teenagers. After speaking to other mothers of teenagers, I am convinced that the problem is spread far and wide. It has the potential to significantly change the culture of communication from this generation forward. I don’t think it’s a positive change. Teenagers "speak" to each other in snippets of thoughts, using unorthodox spelling. They have five or six windows open at a time and try to talk to all those people at once. There are few complete ideas, little time for real relationship-building. I remember hours on the phone as a teenager. I’m sure my parents weren’t thrilled with that. But that time was at least time spent thoroughly talking about big ideas. Instant messaging is completely unnatural and, I think, unhealthy. 

Instant messaging, and to some degree, electronic mail, can be troublesome. There is no inflection, no body language, no expression. Unlike longhand, postal mail, there’s no time to stop and think before posting and eliciting an instant response. There is no time to reconsider, yet there is a written record of what was said. For emotional, volatile teenagers, this is dangerous territory.

The Internet is not altogether safe territory for adults either. We can seek and find people online who can encourage and educate us. But we must ask ourselves what the people in our homes are doing while we are online. I think our time at the computer can very easily foster resentment in our children and our husbands. Very easily. 

I remember a mom sharing online years ago that at times of stress in her household she had an impulse to check her e-mail. How I could relate to that! E-mail can be an escape from reality, shrouded just enough with good things that it doesn’t seem as evil as soap operas, for instance. And it’s not. There is no redeeming value to soap operas. 

There is, of course, value in our online support networks. That’s where Satan can be very tricky. He says, "Here, do the good thing; write an encouraging post, ask a question about a challenge in your home. Never mind what is going on around you." But God is saying, "Here, do the BEST thing. There will be ample time for the good, as long as you do things in My will." Time online can suck us away from our relationships in the real world. We can get so caught up in a great idea that we want to share, that we let our impulse to write take over our common sense. It can also override our sense of duty. Are we at the keyboard when dinner should be cooking? Are we there when a diaper needs changing? Or, more subtly, are we there when our children are plopped in front of the television or the Gameboy? What could we be doing?
God is not a God of chaos. He is not a God who pulls us away from our families. The computer is a great resource. For those of us who love to write, online discussion groups are an instant way to be read. We can give voice and expression to our most creative ideas. But they are also the very things that Satan will use to pull us from the Creator Himself. Satan will trap us with our own good ideas and trick us into believing that everybody needs us and needs what we are going to say — and they need us right now. They don’t. We don’t have to live in an instant world.

The 1950s family farm really did require being fully present in the moment. The family couldn’t afford to be distracted by technology. A cow won’t wait to be milked (at least not for long or without consequence). Vegetables must be canned when they are ripe. Sufficient unto each day are the duties God assigns to them. So it is in the suburbs as well. It just takes a bit more discernment to see it.

Ultimately, for me, it takes a simple reminder. When the electronic things are out of control, I ask myself if the doctor called tomorrow to tell me that I’d had a relapse of the cancer I fought 14 years ago, would I be sorry about how I spent yesterday? Would I regret time spent in any way if I knew that the next year was going to be swallowed by chemotherapy and hospitalizations? How would I feel if the therapy didn’t work this time? Usually, I decide the computer is not all that important after all. And I don’t want my children paying attention to their screens and boxes. I want them to have ME and I want to have them. 

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