Conscious uncoupling…for a day
The news that Chris Martin , he of Coldplay , and Gwyneth Paltrow, she of Hollywood had ‘consciously uncoupled’ for a year before they told the world hardly met with much interest from me. What happened though was a train of thought emerged as I pondered the immense pit of irrelevent news stories we are fed each day. I looked at my own family as they sat immersed in screens of varying types and decided to ‘consciously uncouple ‘ from my devices for a day.
For many people, my children especially, the thought of putting the devices down and turning them off is a frightening thing.
What would we do with our fingers and neck muscles every few minutes with no screen to check?
An article I came across tells us of the ‘technology that rocks the cradle’ in an interesting look at innovation centered around infants and parenthood boosted by technology. In a few years time, there will be no need to ring up your mother for advice about the new baby, it will be on the heads-up display and suggestions will be streaming into the house from a myriad of resources.
In an unrelated conversation I had with a teacher recently, she told me that in her school older children were being brought into the nursery classrooms to help teach the 3 and 4 year olds how to play with toys.
Yes, you read that right!
Staff had found that the children were passive when confronted with traditional toys to play with and only showed interest when iPads were put on the floor for them to use.
You know that hand-basket we all went to hell in? It’s in the nursery classroom.
We are ultra connected yet hugely inarticulate. We ‘chat’ all day but rarely ‘speak’.
We ‘like’ till the cows come home yet cannot choose without help.
We are an enigma, an enigma morphing into a completely different type of human, the like of which we have never seen.
So, how was my ‘consciously uncoupled’ day going?
Brilliantly! We went for a walk, chatted, did things around the house, managed to stroll to a pub by the canal and sink a few quiet beers in the sunshine, had a spot of lunch and enjoyed the sights and smells of nature.
The world did not end while we were out, urgent messages turned out to be less than urgent and my thumbs got a rest!
Not a new video, when this was first shown the problem was well known but it has not gone away. Mind you, things could be worse, you could spend the mornings pressed up against a window waving at yourself on morning tv!
see you on the long and winding road…. Patrick
