The Week says technology is making addicts of all of us. My husband will be posting next week about Men and Technology Enchantment–I can’t wait for that.

As a woman and SAHM, it’s definitely a mental and almost spiritual discipline to put my smart phone down, turn the computer off, and stay engaged with my kids.

Every time I get a new email, FB message, or tweet, it’s a chance to escape and engage in what feels like the outside world, or the real world. Someone outside of this house–someone over three feet tall–wants me, needs me, likes me! If it let myself, I can miss out on the Very Real in front of me.

(Below is something I wrote after a particularly social-media obsessed day.)

We’ll continue our look at the Spiritual Discipline of Childlike Contentment/Presentness; in light of that, I felt like this article was worth considering.

“Next year, for the first time, ‘Internet Use Disorder’ will be listed in the appendix of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders…”It’s this basic cultural recognition that people have a pathological relationship with their devices,” says Standford University psychologist Kelly McGonigal.

The article goes on to say that our brains have been rewired to receive pleasurable “squirts of dopamine” every time we receive a new text, tweet, or email…our sense of expectation and reward are beginning to resemble those of cocaine addicts and alcoholics–especially for those who spend more than 38 hours a week online.

What about you? Are you addicted to the internet? Are you distracted and excited by online attention? What keeps you present when the online world is calling?

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Lookalooklalook mama. There’s a bee. Lookalookalook there’s a ant.

I see buddy.

No mama stand right there—finger pointed down in front of him—Looka the bee. Looka her. 

Buddy, I’m checking my @mentions. I need to see if people have retweeted me.

Mama stand right there—finger pointed down in front of him—watch me swing.

Hang on kiddo, just another minute. I need to find out if my Klout is rising.

No mama. I playing outside. You play with me.

Not right now, babe. I have to update my status. 

Mama. Be here. Right here. Lookalookalooka my ladybug friend. Lookaher.  

For the moment—for this moment, I set my desire for approval down, watch the bee as she buzzes between the flowers and then excuses herself to go make the honey. She and my son busy creating beauty, sweetness—presentness.  

I kneel down and help my little man sift dirt—chubby fingers looka-ing for his ladybug friend.