Job 12:13 - To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his. Your cell phone rings. It’s a friend you haven’t seen or spoken to for over three months. You start out with having only a few minutes on break at work when the next time you look at your phone you realize you’ve been talking for over forty-five minutes. You take a look around and sigh. Your supervisor isn’t in sight, so you say goodbye to your friend and rush through the rest of your day to catch on the work that should’ve been done a long time ago.
Distraction. That’s one of the things that cell phones cause. They distract you from your work as you check on Facebook every hour. They distract you from your family, as you text back-and-forth a friend instead of spending face-to-face time with your family. Or, how about the rudeness of continuing to slide through your apps while you are with someone. In addition to talking on your cell phone, texting while driving has resulted in serious car accidents. Cell phones have not been around for very long, but long enough that a large portion of our population spend more than just a few minutes on their phones, but instead they spend hours on their phone daily. With all of the texting, scrolling, and talking on cell phones there are studies coming through that not only are cell phones hurting our relationships they are having a real physical effect on our health. Abcnews.go.com has an article about the negative side effects of cell phones in their article, “7 Surprising Ways Cell Phones Affect Your Health,” such as bacteria that lives on the surface of your phone and how texting takes a toll on your thumbs. Though, yes, there are many negative effects of prolonged cell phone use, there are also positive benefits such as staying in touch with your family when an emergency occurs and letting others know when you’re ill. They also make it easier for family and friends to exchange photos and you can see what is going on in their life though they live many miles away. There also is the positive of being able to research on Google on your phone instead of needing to do so on your computer. This allows you to make more informed and faster decisions. The cell phone is mobile so you can research the pricing and benefits of purchasing products before you place an order. Itstillworks.com posts the article, “The Cell Phone: Positive Impacts on Society,” lists some of the positive impacts such as helping people with speech difficulties. It’s important that you be aware of the negative and positive effects of cell phone usage on your health and life. Choose to use hands-free devices or wait to make that phone call after you are home. Make a point to not check your Facebook account or answer a text until after you finish a face-to-face conversation. And if you are addicted to checking your status, turn your phone off once you are home and give it a rest. God will give you the wisdom to know when you need to cut back on your cell phone usage time. He understands that there are positive effects on your relationships by staying in touch, but he also knows when you’ve been on your phone in excess. |
AuthorKaren Dalske is a freelance writer, public speaker, is active in her church and writes her blogs out of her own experiences of pain, illness and loss. Archives
January 2021
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