200 times a Day

I went to a conference recently on social media. Social media seems to have taken over our American culture. On the average, a person will check their smart phone about 200 times a day.

I see it at the workplace: during meetings, at lectures, at the desk, walking in the hall. I see it at restaurants: waiting for their order, sitting across from their dinner partner who is doing the same thing. I see it in our house: all three of us sitting around the family room, texting, iPADing, Facebook, Linked In, Tweeting. Family rooms should probably change their names to media room.

It’s fun. I enjoy it. I can see pictures of loved ones from all over the world.

But sometimes I wonder if we have lost the art of writing. Putting ink to a page and sending it with a stamp. Or recording our thoughts in a diary. 200 years from now, if someone goes through our old deserted attic, what will they find that personalized me? Old computers, keyboards, stack of dead phones. Many wonderful movies have been made sharing the story of the delightful secrets that children/grandchildren discovered about their parents/grandparents after they had passed.

On the other hand-being the moderate that I naturally am-perhaps a compromise is in order. No one could read my handwriting. All the scribbled pages in my multiple colored spiral notebooks would still go unread. They are illegible!

So, I use my phone, and I self publish my writings. If I had to put a box together today, to create a time capsule for future generations, I would place in it a cellular phone, a published work, and a spiral notebook with a pretty pen. I suppose,  I would be suggesting to future generations to tell their stories. Use what ever medium gets them out to others, but tell your stories. Leave pieces of you behind for others to cherish.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/time-capsule/