Life Without Screens, part three

As I mentioned earlier in two very brief posts, Lisa and I decided that we would try to spend the entire days Saturday and Sunday WITHOUT watching TV or getting on the computer. The impetus of this decision came from a conversation in which we both admitted that--while we were spending time together--we were not always spending time focused on one another. Instead, we sat and watched TV, or Lisa might be on Facebook on the computer while I was sitting beside her looking at Facebook on my cell phone (A couple of days ago that happened and I commented to Lisa, "You just commented on what SO AND SO posted on Facebook? I thought you were working!"). We decided we were letting these screens distract us, and that we needed--at least for the weekend--to stop. We also wondered aloud whether we'd be able to even do this.

And we didn't. Not completely. But nonetheless, we made some real progress. At the end of the weekend I had learned some valuable things:

First of all, I found that skipping TV was pretty much a breeze. Lisa might argue with that since she did not watch ANY TV during the two days, and I did twice. The first time we were out in public and I saw on one of the ESPN stations a college football game between two teams that I didn't even know existed. But when I walked by I saw that there was less than a minute left in the game and the team that was down by four points was driving toward the goal, and I couldn't help myself: I NEEDED to know who was going to win this game. I didn't even watch one play of the game, though, before Lisa walked behind me, touched me on the shoulder and said simply, "Busted."

The second time I watched TV was Sunday night. It occurred to me that Minnesota Vikings quarterback Brett Favre was returning to Lambeau Field to take on the Green Bay Packers for the first time since he'd had a very public dispute with them, so I turned on the TV to see the score. As soon as I did so I felt guilty and so I turned it off, but I did have it on for about 30 seconds (Also, to be honest, I turned it off because I saw that the Vikings were ahead 31-20 with just a few minutes left and the game was pretty much over, but let's not talk about that...).

Still, despite those two slip ups, I did not have much of an aching to watch TV over the two days. I did find Sunday morning a little bit tough, as our usual routine was to watch the morning news shows before heading to church, but I got over that, and I actually found NOT watching the news, and NOT watching politicians and reporters arguing about health care and Afghanistan and the President's first year in office kind of nice. I felt more at peace without the dis-ease created by those shows.

So missing TV wasn't that hard. The computer--that was a different story. For starters, we realized very quickly that we had to change "No computer" to "No Internet," because we use the computer for a lot of things. Without ever getting on the Internet, I needed the computer over the weekend to edit a document in a word processing program and to use a financial software package to take care of our finances. I guess I could have waited until Monday to do those things, but I didn't think putting things off was the point. I didn't see a problem in using the computer because I NEEDED it as a tool.

And I also found that, in the end, I couldn't avoid the Internet entirely for the same reasons. I never got on the Internet for pleasure, but I found I actually needed the Internet on four separate occasions over the weekend:

1. Saturday morning I needed to know the weather before sending one of the children off to a band competition for the day. We don't subscribe to a newspaper and I couldn't turn on the TV, so I had to go to the National Weather Service page. I guess I COULD have turned on the radio and waited for a report, but again, I don't think that was the point of the weekend.
2. As I managed our money I needed to go online to do so online banking.
3. I felt a need to update this blog so my parents wouldn't think I was dead.
4. I needed to look up a phone number. As I mentioned in a prior post, we no longer have print phone books in our house, so the Internet is the only place to go.

More than those four times, though, I found it HARD to not get on the Internet just to get on it. I mentioned a few months ago how the way we accumulate information has changed thanks to the Internet, and I was VERY cognizant of that on Saturday and Sunday when I could NOT quickly jump on the Internet to find out

• what others thought about the movie This is It, which Lisa and I went to see on a date
• what that gurgling sound behind the speedometer in my car might be
• what reviews were for Rustoleum countertop paint
• why some leaves turn yellow while others turn red or orange

I also found it hard to not get on Facebook and to not upload pictures of my trick or treating children and the over the top Halloween house we visited (see yesterday's post). In fact, I actually thought to myself about Facebook,  "How do I know what's going on with my friends? Their whole weekend is passing by and I'm missing it!" Never mind that this time a year ago I hadn't starting using Facebook much, and that prior to getting on Facebook I hadn't heard from most of my friends in years and years and years. I usually hear on a nightly basis where these people are eating dinner, WHAT they're eating for dinner, whether or not they're sick, and so on. I felt I NEEDED to know these little details of their lives!

So the Internet is so ingrained in our lives that staying away from it was MUCH harder than avoiding TV. And neither Lisa nor I succeeded 100%. But we did succeed in cutting WAY back, and it did make a difference. Both Lisa and I admitted that--over the weekend--we spent much more time together actively involved with one another than we would have on a normal weekend, and that it was nice.We agreed to try to spend less time when we were together staring into these screens, and maybe we'll have another screen free weekend one day.

...but not THIS coming weekend, because the Bengals are back after their bye and will be playing the Pittsburgh Steelers! Who Dey!...