Food for thought

Some of you might have wondered..or you may not have why I decided to cut ties with Facebook for Lent.

Well a few weeks ago on a blog I follow, The Southern Belle Boy Mom, she referenced a post by another blog author and shared her plans to unplug for a week. I read the article and it really hit home for me. I will attach the link so you can read to if you wish. Click here to read the original article.

The article talked about losing precious time with your kids, husband, and whole family because we are always so caught up in social media. Some people have a great balance, some don't. She went on to talk about not just social media, but TV also. Many times I find myself so wrapped up in a show that I don't notice that my kids or husband need me. It might be as simple as a few minutes snuggling on the couch or some alone time after the kids have gone to bed. Since I have read it I have really tried to limit my TV watching until the kids are in bed or on weekend mornings, when they are playing or watching cartoons in the other room.

The main kicker: Social Media. There are so many social media outlets today, it started with Myspace, then Facebook,  Twitter, Instagram, Foursquare, Google +...get my drift? It doesn't need to define us, we define ourselves. While I love reading what all my friends are up to and seeing pictures of their lives. I have realized I don't need to know what your doing every 5-10 minutes. I don't care where you are eating dinner for the 10th time or that your cuddling on the couch with your husband. I think we have become so used to putting our whole lives out there for everyone to see we don't realize when we cross the line. I don't want my kids to grow up thinking they need to post everything in their lives on the Internet. I see pictures that teenagers (and some adults) post on facebook and instagram and think wow that might come back to haunt them one day. You never know who is out there looking at your pictures and that it might come back to bite you in the bum.

The other thing she talks about is talking on the phone while driving with kids in the car. I am so bad at this! I am almost always on the phone if I am in the car. She said do you children need to be hearing adult conversations? Well No they don't. Also you loose so much time to interact with them, even if it is just a 10 min car ride. Use that time to get to know your family again. I used to use drive time to help Kelsey memorize easy things like her address, phone numbers, birthdays. Now we are working on helping Hayden learn his letters, numbers, colors. I am not perfect and sometimes I do catch myself on the phone, but it is all about being aware of whats happening.

I come back to the main problem of all of the above being too accessible to us now. If you have a smart phone you can have all the social media apps at your fingertips 24/7, you can even watch TV on your phone now from your cable provider. Do we need all this? I really don't think so. Like I said in my other post checking my phone became part of my routine during the day. I would leave a room and if I left my phone in there one of my children would bring it to me...umm wake up call! I can live without it, it isn't a source of life.  I don't think I will cut ties all the way with Social Media, but I am now very aware of when it is taking time away from my family.

xoxo...Brittany