The Sounds Of Stillness And Silence

After reading this Pew Research Center article about American views on mobile etiquett and this YouTube video about the problem with our phones, this writer has come to the conclusion that the sounds of stillness and silence are foreign to most people in our society, especially young people. Folks seemingly have to have some form of noise in their ears 24/7. What causes this phenomenon?

In the above YouTube video (at the 0.34 second mark), we learn that "because of our phones, we may find ourselves incapable of sitting alone in a room with our own thoughts, floating freely in our own heads, daring to wonder into the past and the future, allowing ourselves to feel pain, desire, regret, and excitement. We are addicted to our phones, not because we rely on them, but to the extent that we recruit them to a harmful project of self-avoidance."

As this article brings out, "solitude used to be good for self-reflection and self-reinvention." In fact, human beings need periods of time in which to "forget about ourselves for a while, the chance to disconnect." As this article emphasizes, quoting from a Pennsylvania Gazette article, "We lament technology’s effect on our ability to focus, but it has also eroded our capacity to be alone with our thoughts, and to daydream. This may not sound like a loss, but there’s great psychological value to letting your mind relax: it recharges your mental batteries, and it’s when your brain is most likely to generate unexpected insights or sudden answers to problems you’ve been working on" (note the benefits of walking).

In the above Pew Research Center article, we learn that "90% of cell owners say their phone is frequently with them. Some 31% of cell owners say they never turn their phone off and 45% say they rarely turn it off." In other words, the mobile phone has caused our society to literally become a detached society, folks not wanting to carry on a face-to-face conversation with their fellow human beings because of a distracting cell phone (see here and here). On Page 3 of the above Pew Research Center article, we learn that "About half of cellphone owners say that when they are in public, they use their phones for no particular reason — just for something to do (how sad a commentary).

Satan has just found another avenue to keep folks so busy, they will have no time to open, read, and study God's word (see here). If he can keep us away from the Book, he can sucessfully keep us and our children from heaven (see here). Beloved, let's not allow that to happen.

---Mike Riley, Gospel Snippets