As a way to continue the conversations in The Biola Hour, we've invited Becky Mitchell to blog her thoughts after each episode. This is a response to Episode 49 on technology and well-being. Feel free to interact with Becky's thoughts in the comments below.
So, here I type on my laptop referencing notes taken on my phone. It shows you what many of my days look like, switching from one piece of technology to another, using both at the same time or switching to my phone when my laptop decides to quit working. It is a symbol of our society’s technological addiction and one of my privileges. I would have only paused for a moment and not 10 if Doreen Dodgen-Magee hadn’t come to speak on life and technology.
In technology’s unhealthy ways I want to learn to not be dependent. I want to have the fiery life that Dodgen-Magee talked about to be mature. I want to enjoy the deliciousness of doing nothing over my anxiety to complete another task. And my wants are not meant to be fulfilled quickly or without painful processes.
One of the simple changes was to take 10 minutes away from technology every day. How could this small amount of time change anything? But I tried it anyways because my head screamed of being overwhelmed from all the sights of social media. I decided to finally make time for journaling, to remind my future self of what my days were filled with. To help my present self remember the joys and pains, well to try not to focus on only one or the other. It feels like only a moment of breathing before the clock has erupted 10 minutes later. My pencil fills the empty pages, wanting to savor the thoughts and the words that become of them, sometimes writing as letters or memories for myself and others as conversations with God.
There is never enough time to write of all the day’s memories. The pages turn slowly as I forget to journal. Oh how wonderful the days when I remember to take those 10 minutes. I have found a place of rest that takes me outside of my head and outside of technology.
Where will you find rest outside of technology? As you do, remember God’s words of, “Be still and know that I am God.”