We’ve posted before about our belief that it is critical to take the time to unplug from your electronic life every now and then. We feel that people tend to use their devices to avoid face-to-face interaction; or as way to disengage from whatever is happening around them.
We are preparing for a quickly approaching family vacation. What do you think was one questions Plum asked when hearing of the trip? “Can I bring my iPad?” We know you can guess the answer! It was, “No.”
Here is why we forbid this device to accompany us on our family trip:
- A vacation is about immersing yourself in your surroundings and discovering new sights, tastes, sounds, and feelings. It is not about tuning out your world to focus on the latest App.
- Your motivation to explore your surroundings plummets when you have an iPad feeding your boredom.
- Your interest in conversation with your friends and family diminishes when you can instead engage with the tempting worlds and characters within the Apps on your iPad.
- Once you disconnect from your iPad, it takes a good ½ hour, or more, for you to become a recognizable, functioning human once again.
- Your iPad is an expensive piece of equipment that would be at risk of being broken, stolen, or lost while traveling.
So for a myriad of reasons, some captured above, our vacation will not include an iPad. Plum will complain at first. She’ll use her wit and wiles to try and devise a way to get us to cave. But hopefully, on the ride home from a wonderful journey sans iPad, she’ll realize that maybe TR Mom and TR Dad actually do know what they’re talking about- at least some of the time.