I may not be a candidate for a show as creepy as My Strange Addiction, but suffice to say, I have joined the ranks of iPhone addicts.
My compulsive email-Facebook-Twitter addiction has officially infiltrated nearly every aspect of my life.
My only pathetic attempt to keep this monster at bay so far was deleting ‘Words With Friends’ angrily a month ago — after getting fed up by continually being beaten by strangers with seemingly low vocabularies, but better strategies than myself.
I have six email accounts, two Twitter accounts and one Facebook account. I use them all. While most of them, with the exception of the Facebook account, are work-related and generate revenue, this excuse is further procrastination for not setting up boundaries for myself.
And if you have ever met me, you would know I require boundaries.
Boundaries that should include not even acknowledging my phone while driving or at stop lights (don’t be so self-righteous all you hands-free, know-it-alls); not checking it while in social situations and human interaction is immediate (even those really boring circumstances – it’s still rude); and putting it down at a certain time of the evening and not checking it until the morning.
Perhaps I could extend the boundaries to the park by my house. These boundaries may have prevented me from glancing at my beeping hand-held device while my 14-month-old not-so-steady son fell and scraped his nose the other day.
Talk about a guilt trip. Nice one, mom.
Or two months ago when I got that cellphone ticket and my poor judgment call aided those super troopers in getting one step closer to filling their quotas.
How about that feeling when you’re carrying on simultaneous conversations through text and you send the ‘wrong’ text to the wrong person. You know — the ‘ya, that really just happened’ moment.
In my defense, I do have manners. I always leave the room, or speak in a lowered tone of voice or ignore a call if I’m in a quiet space where others would be forced to listen to me — I wouldn’t gab mid-gym workout or on public transit.
I spend a great deal of quality time with my kids and I rarely have the television on during the day.
And when it comes to my addiction to social networking platforms, I avoid ‘selfies’ like the plague, never air dirty laundry on Facebook and I don’t care much for 100 photos of the same angle — yes, your newborn is really cute. They all are.
I’m just really addicted to political commentary, memes and links to articles. What a geek.
Before you log into your email to send me a message about what a terrible person I am, I challenge you to take a time-out moment for self-reflection rather than bask in your glow of hypocrisy.
Are you plagued with the same addiction?
Could it be possible that you, too, are guilty of spending too much time on your i-whatever, Android or cellphone?
