“Social media is separating and dividing us. We don’t ‘connect’ as we used to. Instead of calling and speaking we text each other. Often, we group text, or we tweet followers and post to friends on social media. This habit is devoid of humans speaking and listening to each other. Many times, we’re just posting announcements or scrolling, reading walls or watching video without any meaningful give and take.

People are using emojis. They like or don’t like but don’t comment or interact or create engagement. We become passive consumers of digital stimulation. Enter a room anywhere today and you see people staring at their devices instead of talking together. Most of them are gaming, texting, reading or watching media. Human interaction, engagement, is limited.

If there’s any communication at all it’s through electronics with someone, somewhere else. This form of ‘staying connected’ is not meaningful contact. We’re not actually talking and listening to or trying to understand anyone anymore. These are not conversations where meaning and understanding are important. These are mostly written notes littered with abbreviations and emoticons.

DEVELOP THE POSITIVE ATTITUDE, MINDSET AND BELIEFS TO TRANSFORM YOURSELF

We don’t hear the other’s voice or see their expressions, we read texts in our voice with our expression. Because we don’t listen or see, we assume and misinterpret. Since we don’t actually talk, we don’t actually connect. We think we’re more connected through electronics and social media, but we might be more isolated and less exposed to diverse thinking, cultures and people.

A room full of people all on their devices instead of interacting together is not coming together. With technology comes advances. There’s no doubt we’re better off the more we’ve invented. As we advance the same technology can create problems. Perhaps, nothing is inherently good or evil. A hammer can be used to build or tear down. However, living through your phone, a camera lens or monitor is not living much.

Watching a documentary on an African town is not the same as visiting the town and getting to know and experience the people. We’re missing out on actual experiences. We live vicariously rather than really live. We’ve become passive observers, sheltered behind our mobile devices, rather than participants. Instead of this making us better it lessens our experiences and feelings. We escape. It preoccupies us.

DEVELOP THE POSITIVE ATTITUDE, MINDSET AND BELIEFS TO TRANSFORM YOURSELF

Instead of meeting the new person sitting next to you, you escape into digital entertainment. You game, watch Youtube, text someone, read FB which causes you to miss real life and human interaction. You may even use your advice to avoid real life encounters with the people right there with you. You are shut off, not involved. You are limited and not expanding. So how about you give the phone a rest and take a break.

Shut off your phones and put them away. Make time for family and friends. Have some real face time with the people you love and care about. PUT THE MOBILE DEVICE AWAY. Your children OR your parents deserve YOU and your uninterrupted time and attention. Don’t deprive them. Don’t be tempted to answer the call or the text. The person in front of you is more important, most likely, than the person texting in.

Most texts and phone calls can wait. Make time for people in your life at this moment. Make time for your loved ones! Respect each other! Respect the other person by giving your undivided attention. Give your complete attention without checking your FB wall. It’s rude to be constantly picking up your phone instead of listening and looking at the human with you. Learn to live without your phone. You will survive!

DEVELOP THE POSITIVE ATTITUDE, MINDSET AND BELIEFS TO TRANSFORM YOURSELF

Many people, if they forget their phone, panic. STOP IT! It’s only a phone. Yes, it’s shiny, has bangs and whistles and costs a fortune but it’s nowhere near the value of your real friends and family who want to connect with you. Put it aside. Learn to live without it so you can enjoy it without being addicted to it. If you forget it at home, you will survive. Learn to eliminate those feelings of ‘gotta have it.’

Those feelings are stressors. You want to Relax, it’s only a phone. You will survive! In bygone days, (a few years back) no one had personal devices to stay in touch and the world went on anyway. It is a fallacy to think we need the phone just in case. That’s a created sense of immediacy and foreboding that is artificial. It only causes worry and stress. You don’t need it.

Hug not hold. Occasionally you had to make an important call, or you might have missed an important call BUT life went on. There’s no reason to be a slave to your electronic device. It IS the people that are important, not the devices. It IS the human you can hug, not the gadget you can hold that matters. Relax. Schedule time to connect. Turn off your phones. Have a date night with your loved one or friends. Hug.

DEVELOP THE POSITIVE ATTITUDE, MINDSET AND BELIEFS TO TRANSFORM YOURSELF

Leave electronics behind. Shut the phone off for half a day or more. You can do it even if it seems as though you can’t. If you feel you can’t, then you really ought to. Stop being addicted to technology. At the end of your life you won’t say, ‘If I had only spent more time texting and posting to Facebook. If I’d only answered the phone more often.’ You are going to wish for more time with people you love.

Do not cheat yourself or them of your time and attention. This instant is all you have. It is this moment that is important. It is who you are with or can be with right now that is important. Right NOW, the real experience is better than the digital experience. Consider this. It’s better to breathe real oxygen than digital oxygen. LIVE life. Don’t just watch or read about it. Experience living! Connect with someone in a special way! Spend the quality time together you and they deserve. Celebrate everything!” Rex Sikes

PS if you want more help visit rexsikes.com and see my program How To Get People To Do What You Want.