Somewhere I saw an article with that title: “Mommy, Stop Texting and Talk to Me.” They’re hard words—especially in a month that honors moms. (Watch it, Nash!) They’re also the heart cry of children having to fight harder and harder for some basic you-and-me time with parents who have become increasingly distracted, and can be interrupted anyplace, anytime, by the ding of a new text message.
Moms aren’t the only ones. I heard a discussion on sports radio about dads using their smartphones while standing in line with their kids at Disney World. So what’s the big deal with that? The lines at Disney can take an hour or two. What’s the problem with getting a little work done while waiting to ride Space Mountain? It’s just being efficient, right? When it’s time to get on the ride, you can enjoy the Disney experience with your kids.
This, of course, misses the point: Standing in line with your kids is the Disney experience. Strangely, I can remember standing in line with my parents and sister at Disney World even more vividly than I remember the rides themselves. We’d work through the labyrinth of railings, passing the same sweaty faces again and again. Sometimes I’d stop walking a while to let space develop ahead of me, which was highly annoying to my sister, whom I blocked with my arm. Then I’d race ahead, savoring all the ground I was covering. Though the ride was the thing, the anticipation with my family was also the thing.
When we attempt to fill any possible space in our lives with our silly gadgets (and I’m guilty too), we lose the breathing room we’re supposed to enjoy with each other. It’s a big problem with the current generation of parents, and it’s going to be even worse with the next.
Recently at church I asked our congregation of about 300, half of them college students, how many had used their phones since the start of the worship service. At least 100 people, most of them college students, raised their hands. I didn’t ask that question to condemn anyone. I’ve used my iPhone during church too. And as someone who works with students, I’ve actually come to see that doing several things at once isn’t necessarily the sign of blatant disrespect it used to be. It’s often just the way we’re conditioned: We’ve become accustomed to doing several things at once, to filling any possible gaps with busyness.
But is this frantic lifestyle really what we want? Does it really make us happier? Are we really supposed to get used to talking to someone who’s texting at the same time?
At some point some prophetic voice is going to yell, “Stop! Everyone just stop! Moms and dads, stop making your children dread your next incoming text message. Young adults, stop doing whatever pop culture tells you to do. You don’t really need to text 3,000 times a month; you can cut back and achieve balance in your life.”
In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell tells about the owner of a security firm in Los Angeles who says that, for a bodyguard, the central facet in protecting someone is the “white space,” the distance between the target and any potential assailant. The more white space, the more time the bodyguard has to react and the better his ability to read the mind of any potential assailant.
In 1981 when John Hinckley, Jr., shot President Ronald Reagan, there was no white space. “The Secret Service agents became aware of [Hinckley] only when he started firing. From the first instance when Reagan’s bodyguards realized that an attack was under way . . . to the point when no further harm was done was 1.8 seconds. ‘The Reagan attack involves heroic reactions by several people,’ [Gavin] de Becker says. ‘Nonetheless every round was still discharged by Hinckley. In other words, those reactions didn’t make one single difference, because he was too close’ ” (p. 231).
Without preserving the white space in our lives, we’re unable to give our attention and protection to those who need it most.
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Andy Nash is coauthor of Love, Kirsten: The True Story of the Student Missionary Who Gave Her All, with Rainey Park.This article was publishd May 17, 2012.
