介绍:
The Case for Taking Family Dinner Off-line
Human beings crave variety,
and technology offers just that.
Who's going to send the next text message?
Who's going to fire off an e-mail to you?
Who's on your Facebook?
The only way to find out is to plug in.
And yet, all that disconnection,
one family member from the other,
is a major source of stress within many families today.
Would it be possible for your family
to set aside specific times for family meals?
It may take a little bit of effort,
but it is possible to align the schedules of
family members to create a single dinner hour.
This may be an uncomfortable option at first.
But when a family dines together on a regular basis,
and truly has the opportunity for
conversation uninterrupted by a cell phone
that must be answered or a wide-screen TV
that refuses to be ignored, the benefits are enormous.
This applies just as much to empty nesters
and retirees as it does to those engaged
in the challenge of raising children.
If anything, a couple's need for communication
and face-to-face time only increases
when the children have moved on to college
or other coming-of-age activities.
And as for couples who don't have children,
it's all too easy to allow for technology
to become the modern version of the newspaper
sections behind which married people hide.
Lovers of the world, unite!
You have nothing to lose but a half hour of TV news.
Nowadays, practically all forms of communication,
photos, and video can be reduced to
the "zeros and ones" code transmitted
wirelessly into our homes. Love, however,
cannot be reduced to a digital transmission.
There is a power that comes from individuals
sitting in a room together, looking into each other's eyes,
and telling each other about what's on his or her mind.
How do we thaw cold or even frozen relationships
within families? By sitting down at the dinner table,
by looking each other in the eye,
and by screening out all the screens
that have come to dominate our lives.
We live in a time of unparalleled individual freedom,
which is great, because now people can live,
work, marry, and raise children pretty much
as they choose. The problem is that as a society
we may have swung a little too far
in the direction of individualism.
We aren't thinking enough about the fact
that the building block of any successful society,
from ancient times to our day, is the family.
Stress and loneliness are often bound up
one with the other. Certainly some choose to live alone,
and they cannot be faulted for that choice.
But studies show that the happiest people,
and the longest lived people,
are those whose families and marriages
are healthy, vibrant, and strong.
Even in families where love exists
and the TV and the Internet do not dominate
the social discourse, it's still possible for
family members to feel unloved.
It's our responsibility as parents
and spouses always to remind our loved ones
that we do love them, and never to assume that,
"They know I love them." There are some messages
that cannot be delivered often enough.
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