Social Attention Disorder

It’s all around us. The internet has brought the promise of connectedness to our planet on a scale never before dreamed. But, when was the last time you walked out into nature and smelled a flower? Took your shoes off and walked in a meadow? Marveled at the ocean? Lay with someone special next to a brook and fell asleep?

The more social connection we have attached to a device, needs an equal balance with the earth below our feet. Our activity during a social connection via computer is one of mind, and thought, which is incredibly fulfilling. To stay forever in our minds throughout the day, creates imbalance over time, and the cure is grounding with the earth. Each of the things I mentioned above are things to connect with. Earth connection is just as important as the social one with our human pack.

If you tweet, status update facebook, check in to the retail locations you’re at so you can become mayor? Ask yourself for each one, what benefit am I deriving from this in the short term? in the long term? Would it be too difficult to rise up from your mobile device and reach across the empty space between you and another human and say “Hello.”

Digital social connection can never replace a physical one. Live in the world, put the mobile device away for a while. It will still be there where you left it, to be an information tool, not an extension of the television.