Dying For Attention
People are dying for attention. If we look at our own lives, we are engaged in continual, uninterrupted, relentless distraction. That is what we are dealing with in trying to raise our children. It is constant bombardment. Social media, advertising, television, reality shows, and movies. The competition for our attention is mind boggling. Now we have individuals all seeking attention on you tube, instagram and other social media sites. So instead of a few television shows and three networks as we had in the 1970s, we now have literally millions of tiny little reality tv shows in the form of you tube channels and instagram accounts with people posting enticements and excitement and the best pics they can find. People are literally dying while vying for your attention.
How do we contend with this in our children? If we practice observation, we see adults and parents are getting sucked into the vortex of this phenomenon. I see whole families at a restaurant all looking down at their cell phones not interacting on a personal level because they are enthralled with whoever they are “following”.
Addiction or Harmless Activity ?
This is a huge grand social experiment that no one has any idea what the repercussions will be. If someone suggests that they have a notion of the consequences of this experiment, they are lying. No one knows what the outcome of all this will be. We have to be honest with ourselves. If we stop to think about our own history, there probably hasn’t ever been such a focus on vying for the attention of other people in the history of our country. Can you think of any?
In this grand social experiment, we have created a world where everyone is an entertainer. Everyone. If everyone becomes an entertainer, then there will be no one left to be the audience.
The Power of Focus
I was watching a documentary on Warren Buffet a few months ago and he was telling a story about how Bill Gates’s father sat Bill Gates and Warren Buffet down and gave them a piece of paper. He told them, “write down the most important factor in your success, but don’t show each other what you wrote down.” What was fascinating to me was that they both wrote the same word. FOCUS.
When we think about our own lives and the successes we have had, most likely focus was involved. If we are just bouncing around moving from one mindless activity to another, we lose focus. When we lose focus, we lose power.
Why is this such a problem? Because prayer, meditation and our spiritual growth all require focus. Who smiles when we are distracted ? Only Satan. When we are constantly trying to get everyone to look at our lives, that circumvents our own pursuit of our purpose. It is subtraction by means of distraction. We lose our passion and our purpose when we are so busy observing and being entertained by the lives of others. We should really look at the value of blowing time watching other people’s lives.
All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit nothing? People who do that will be put to shame; such craftsmen are only human beings. Let them all come together and take their stand; they will be brought down to terror and shame. The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in human form, human form in all its glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. (Isaiah 44:9-14 NLT)
Could we be making our cell phones an idol? If we are devoting on average 6 to 8 hours a day to it, it would be hard to argue that it isn’t. This is where self examination comes into play. Where is the value in following the activities or lives of others? How do we benefit and how do our children benefit from know the details of the lives of strangers? That is an important question.