Friday night Neesa and I saw the Ides of March, perhaps one of the hundred best movies of 2011, but perhaps not. Seated in front of us were a group of 20 year olds. During the movie two of them at different times pulled out their smart phones (to check their e-mail? to text?). Neesa and I intervened to get them to turn them off. They complied. We thought though that they were walking exemplars of computer addiction.
I don’t have a smart phone precisely because I know I would become an addict. I am already addicted to computers. I don’t know how many times a day I check e-mail, but it has been far too many. So, I have an idea that comes from Jana Reiss, the author of Flunked Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor which sounds like an interesting book. Reiss is interviewed about the book at Religion Dispatches. In discussing some things she takes away from her year of trying to act like a saint, she suggests that taking a digital Sabbath would be a good idea.
In the case of computers, I think that should ordinarily be workable. I must say, however, that taking a Sunday Sabbath this Sunday from television and missing the World Series, NFL football – not to mention the Good Wife (which shows at 9 on Sunday) sounded unappetizing. (Maybe April would be a better time) But it is hard not to admire those Orthodox Jews who give up television, computers, automobiles and more during their Sabbath period. (Note to compare Christian and Jewish conceptions of the Sabbath in the future).
But I can restrict e-mail to twice a day – every day and abandon the computer on the Sabbath day. That sounds like a moderate start to curing an addiction.
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