Don’t let your mobile rule your life



By Kate Southam

So, have you done anything to deal with your connection addiction since I last posted on our growing obsession with hand held devices?

Child development experts have joined the chorus of concern about what talking, texting, searching and updating via internet enabled mobile phones and hand held devices are doing to our family relationships.

Melbourne-based child psychologist Sally-Anne McCormack told the Herald Sun that it was time to “unplugged” the phone and plug into family life.

“Some may think because they are at the playground they are spending quality time with their children, but if they are playing a game on their phone or doing work, they are not present,” Ms McCormack told the Herald Sun.

So true. As previously reported, I took part in a panel discussion at the Australian Family Friendly Workplace Seminar entitled, “Technology, friend or foe?”

An audience member confessed to standing on the sidelines of her son’s soccer game checking and sending messages on her Blackberry. Other people in the audience agreed. 

My fellow panelist Suzanne Roche, director of Smartnet, a consultancy focusing on business and technology strategies, made the point that technology is not the issue. The problem is the way we use it.

Surely there are people out there in the Women’s Village who remember a time when there were no mobile phones. We went out for a day with the family and lived only in the moment. Bliss.

Early Life Foundations founder Kathy Walker says people need to “reprogram” themselves to let go of their need to respond immediately to text messages and phone calls.

I agree. To work well we need our down time including enjoying strong relationships with family and friends.

See if any of these action suggestions work for you:

* Quantify the amount of out-of-work time you are clocking up talking to clients and solving problems and negotiate to take back some of that time so you can spend it at sports days, school canteen or visiting older family members.

* If you are the boss, then lead by example but don’t have one rule for yourself and another for staff. You need time out and so do they.

* Review if it is really necessary to divert your office phone to your mobile out-of-hours. If it is, then at least have blocks of “time out”.

* Consider having two phones – a personal phone and a work phone. These days our phones are also cameras, games, photo albums, diaries and more so putting your phone in a drawer over the weekend could be impractical. Having two phones would solve this.  
  
* Talk to a tech savvy friend about other options. For example, one reader of my Cube Farmer blog said he programs his mobile device to only down load emails when he actually looks for them to prevent email pings interrupting his personal time. Another poster, Emma, uses a dual sim phone. She says dual sim phones allow you to switch between phone numbers. The one phone has two sims. She says most major phone providers have at least one on offer.
 
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/parents-need-to-turn-off-their-phones-and-switch-on-to-their-families/story-e6frfro0-1226052881215#ixzz1MB9O1RHA