The Lifestyler: Smartphone addiction

If the LifeStyler has one regret it is that he wishes he was firmer with his children and their mobile phones.  The LifeStyler’s kids have all left school but when they were young there was a rule that was no phones in your bedroom.  Guess what that lasted about a week every time it was invoked.

Once upon a time to hand a smartphone to a child was a small mercy as it distracted them whilst we ate in a restaurant. But what did I do?

I look at my kids now and they both wear glasses to read, my son is hunched over with his neck permanently slightly forward, and I fear they live far too much of their lives through their phones and social media. They both even allow their phones to disturb their sleep on occasion.

If I look at myself as I watch TV at night with my phone permanently in my hand to the point the TV show ends and I don’t know what happened.  Little verbal conversation occurs and the fear of missing something on my phone is an obsession.

Over the last few years I have been lucky enough to go on walking holidays with my family and it has seen a complete transformation of personalities when there was no mobile phone coverage. We talk we laugh we share and I found a connection with my children that was not normally there. I even found out that when a friend of mine joined our multi-day walk he turned into a comedian and was happy all the time.  This was not the person I knew.

So the moral of the story is maybe as families and individuals we need to put the phones down one night a week and actually become humans.  We might find out something important rather than who can do the most ridiculous thing on social media. Cheers!