One of the things I love about having a cell phone is the fact that I always have a camera with me. I also have a video camera. It’s unbelievable how much technology is present in a phone that’s so small and thin that it fits in your pocket. At soccer practice one day, I was snapping a picture of my son when suddenly my phone started buzzing. I thought that was strange, since I hadn’t changed anything on my phone to cause it to vibrate. I looked at my phone, and it told me to check in.
As I looked at my phone in a bewildered fashion, it rang right in my hand. I answered it. It was my husband wanting me to check in. “What on earth do you mean? And by the way, my picture of Nathaniel came out blurry because you buzzed my phone while I was taking a picture.”
My husband explained that he had put a GPS on my phone so that he could see where I was located. I was actually happy about this because I often get lost when driving to a new location. I’m deep in thought and then miss my turn off point. While driving to my sister’s house years ago when I was single, I ended up in a different state. Yep. I have no sense of direction whatsoever. Even after exiting the grocery store, I will sometimes forget where I parked, so I have to press the lock button on my keys to “beep” the van so that I can find it.
All this to say that I was fine with my husband knowing where I was. He showed me how to check in. Then I said, “Can’t you just track me without my knowing? There must be a way for you to do it behind my back. I would rather not check in and have you ruin my pictures. I almost dropped my phone.”
My husband figured out how to track me without my knowing it, but the battery goes dead faster. My husband was playing with my phone one day and wondered why the battery was so low. He decided to switch the GPS off.
Another thing I love about my phone is the fact that I can speak into it, and it googles that thing. For example, I wondered whether the costume shop was open yet. So I said, “Display House, Spokane Valley, Washington.” I waited a few seconds, and I could see the hours it was open, and that it wasn’t open yet. I saved myself a half hour trip just because of my cell phone.
Navigation was something my husband used while we were out of town this summer. The phone just told my husband where to go to get to the convention center. “Turn right,” the robot woman would say. I listened to so many instructions that I had a conversation with my husband in a staccato robot voice, throwing in a joke. I made my husband laugh.
The wonders of modern technology never cease… Unfortunately as I rely more and more on my phone, I have become the very person that I said I wouldn’t become, someone who was ruled by a cell phone. And yet it’s so convenient and helpful…
Tags: Christian Living, idolatry, technology
