One should always make time in one's life to take stock. Time flies by so quickly that it is easy to continue along a particular path because there isn't chance to think about what you are doing or whether it could be done in another way. Every so often, I reach a corner where I stop and check that I am happy with the way things are developing before I run, pell mell, down that road.
At the moment, the issue that I am trying to get some perspective on is technology and my use of it in my daily life. Those loyal souls that have read all my musings may recall that when I started my blog back in 2008 I was wanting to combat my fear of technology. I was worried that my children would overtake me and consequently run circles around me. And so I made a conscious decision to embrace the technology around me so that I had a least a fighting chance of keeping up with them.
And I don't think I've done too badly. I have nowhere near the skills of my elder two but at least I know enough to keep a watchful eye on their activities. I can now do all kinds of things that I would previously have had to rely on my husband for. And this week I became the proud owner of an iphone, something that I could never have contemplated even this time last year.
But with increased technology come more and more opportunities to sit at my desk or on my phone looking at things. I facebook avidly, I blog, I follow people on Twitter, I have my course which is online and am contemplating another for September, my job is almost entirely screen based and now suddenly I have an apps store tempting me in with brightly coloured lollipops just like the child catcher. I could quite easily spend whole days attending to my various screen based projects.
So where did my real life go? What did I do with my time back in August 2008 before my little technological revolution?
And so this is what I need to consider. Do I continue to embrace all my new found skills on the basis that in the 21st century this is the way of the future? A lot of the online things that I do have to be visited regularly to get the most of them. It's a bit like an addiction. Once you are in there's no turning back.
Alternatively, do I abandon my screen for the things that I did before? I'm not entirely sure what they were. Nothing seems to have slipped from my agenda although with all the children at school, I do have time that I didn't have back then.Perhaps I just do everything much more quickly to fit it all in? Maybe it's just the pace of my life that has changed?
I suspect, as in all things, a happy medium must be sought. I should keep myself in check so that my life maintains some kind of balance. But, with all the exciting opportunities that the world wide web now offers me, surely I owe it to myself to take full advantage so that my life is fuller as a result?
The summer is coming and screens are rubbish in sunshine. I know because I tried blogging in the garden last year. So I suspect that this will make my activities self limiting over the next few months. But I will continue to keep the balance between my real life and my virtual one monitored. I wonder if there's an app for that?
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