Cell phone vs. family time. Sharing my observation.

My 10 year old son and I recently had a date night.  We went to see a movie and the went out to eat.  It was some really special one on one time.  When we sat down at our table on the patio another family soon sat down beside us.  It was an adorable family with two precious little girls.  I couldn't help but notice that as soon as they sat down the parents each immediately pulled out their phones.  I thought maybe for a second to check something, but after watching (stalking?) them for a while I noticed that they never looked up from their phone one time to talk or interact with the girls.  It made me so sad to see that parents didn't put their phone down until the food came.  It really started me pondering  (to borrow a term from my sweet grandma) about the subject.  As a society we are raising our children to do the same thing.  They see this as an attachment to our bodies, something very important that we cannot live without.  How many times have you forgotten your phone and went all the way back home to get it?  We feel like we can't be away from it for 5 minutes.  The modern cell phone is a great invention that puts everything at our fingertips all hours of the day.  But do we really need the world at our fingertips 24/7.  Everywhere you look around you see people with this same bent head looking down at their phones.  (Which by the way can't be good for your neck!)  This is most especially a sight I see that is common with teenagers.  Games have become very addictive.  Instead of being outside and getting some fresh air and doing something fun together, people are sitting inside playing the same game over and over.  I share my thoughts with you today to encourage you to think more about your cell phone use.  Do you spend too much time?  Do you seem to get lost in it?  Most especially do you spend time on it instead of talking with your kids?  If so I encourage you to get "unplugged" for a while.  Select a weekend and go without playing games, perusing Facebook, etc. on your cell phone.  Keep it for calls only.  This week I gave up Facebook to spend some time focusing on some other things.  It was really hard when I sat down to not pick up that phone and click that blue button, but I did it.  I just had to make that decision every time I picked up the phone!