Distractions

Therese Borchard wrote an interesting post at Today's Mama about distraction.  She shares Boston Globe columnist, Maggie Jackson's quote “The way we live is eroding our capacity for deep, sustained, perceptive attention–the building block of intimacy, wisdom, and cultural progress. Moreover, this disintegration may come at great cost to ourselves and to society….The erosion of attention is the key to understanding why we are on the cusp of a time of widespread cultural and social losses.”


I've had discussions with several people about my concerns that many teenagers (and younger kids too) are lacking communication skills because they prefer to text instead of talk.  This lack of communication skills is starting to creep into more professional aspects of life.  Sometimes, it bothered me on a deeper level that I couldn't quite put my finger on - Maggie Jackson hit it on the head.  It's not just a corrosion of communication, it's a breakdown of our culture.


I love my tech gadgets and don't want to go back to not have email or a cell phone, but I think it's important to keep them in their place.  It's also vital to teach children to finish what they start, to build meaningful relationships with family and friends and to be compassionate.  We all need to balance the time we read and talk about life, and the time we spend actually living it.  


Finding that balance seems like my lifelong quest.  Some days I feel like I'm getting a grasp on it, only to watch it slip away the next minute.  Hoe do you find balance and stay focused on the most important things in life?  How do you teach your children those same values?