Digital Dependence
Recently, technology and I have been having a moment. It hasn’t been a lack of understanding it but rather a lack of realizing my addiction to, dependency on, or taking-for-grantedness of this part of my life.
First, a couple of months ago, my pedometer started showing signs that its demise was imminent. I have been wearing it, or one like it, day in and day out since January 2013. Like many of you, my goal has been 10,000 steps each day, which for me is 5.4 miles. There have been an untold number of nights that, lacking a mere 400 or 500 steps, I have paced the house until I surpassed that almighty threshold. Hopefully, my neighbors have not noticed, but then, maybe they are doing the same thing. During the pandemic, walking outside was, quite literally, a Godsend. I had no trouble reaching my quota.
The company has quit making this model and I have not ordered another pedometer. So, I have quit wearing this one (gasp!). I had no idea how important it has been to me to know exactly where I stand each day (and every day) towards my goal. When I go out walking, I use another app as well that records distance. But what about all the walking – around the house, the church, the grocery store, etcetera? I have no idea if I am even close! You would think that this little device has been the sole source of light and life for me.
Then, a few weeks ago, I took a short trip out of the country. It was about six days of traveling. Halfway through, my phone decided to have a fit. One minute it was working fine and I was following a mapping app through the city, and the next minute my phone screen was black. Pushing the little side buttons had no effect at all. Fortunately, I was with a friend and her phone was working fine, so we were not in dire straits. But it was very disconcerting. I eventually figured out how to see the top 20% or less of the screen, but I could not access either the phone keypad or the keyboard to respond to texts or emails. I could not take pictures with any degree of certainty. I could not track my well-being on another app, so a 3400+ streak of logging meals went down the tubes. I spent the last two days of the trip, the day traveling back, plus two more days in Charlotte without the use and convenience of my cell phone until it was fixed. Needless to say, it all took me back to a mere twenty-five or so years ago, to when we had none of this and we survived just fine.
So, what if I realized – I mean really realized, perhaps pacing the floor at night realized – how much more dependent upon God I am than on mere technology? I do know the true source of my light and life, and it is not in knowing exactly far I have traversed, or in keeping a perfect meal log, or having access to a world of information at my fingertips. Those are nice. Those are first-world tools to well-being, but they are not really what life is about. The truth is that if I am walking the way of Jesus, if I am steeping myself in the Eucharistic meal, if I am aware of and doing something about the needs of this world, then I am living into my dependence, a dependence that is not digital but divine.
Joan+