The problem is you heard me say today
there's a huge difference
between human doing and human being.
And think about that.
Human doing is you can be an activist,
you can send messages,
you can raise awareness.
That's human doing, but how are you at human being,
at being a human?
Your interpersonal interaction skills,
not tweeting, but making eye contact.
And when you're with somebody that you're friends with
do an experiment.
Just stand in front of them,
you can even do it six feet away,
keep your social distancing during the pandemic
and make eye contact
without saying a word
and without looking away for 20 seconds
and see how comfortable or uncomfortable it feels.
Are you staring at 'em like a dead trout
or are you actually looking at them?
Does it feel like one of those pregnant pauses?
I mean, how does it look?
How does it feel?
So, you know, think about all of that
because interpersonal skills are sliding
and certain things like spelling and grammar are decaying
because we abbreviate everything
and we don't write in full sentences.
Everything is shorthand and abbreviations
and those skills really decay.
And I know my handwriting,
I used to have to fill out,
like sometimes 50 or 60 hospital records in a day
or every other day.
And that's why you wonder
why doctors have such bad bad handwriting.
It's just like scribble this as fast as you can,
scribble that as fast as you can in the record.
And so it just decays from lack of use.
So our interpersonal skills can really erode
when everything is electronic, email
Twitter, voicemail, things like that.
So, but I thought we had really good examples
of people that are using this for good.
And, but you notice every one of them
said I'm being consumed and overwhelmed by it.
How many of you think you spend
more than five hours a day plugged into a device
some way or another?
Raise your hand.
Wow.
That's almost everybody.
Think about that, five hours a day.
How many think eight hours a day?
You're on your phone, on your laptop, on a device?
Yeah, that's probably half.
So yeah,
and that's time that you're not spending
hanging with human beings.
And so you got to wonder
if your interpersonal skills are eroding.
You really have to think about that
when you get involved in something like that,
you got to compartmentalize it.
I have to do that with what I do.
If I took all of these stories home every day
the weight of it all would just crush you.
You deal with someone
that's been molested, raped, their son has been killed,
their daughter is missing or whatever,
you have to develop the ability to compartmentalize.
So you have a chance to go out and play tennis
or softball or go swimming or watch some crazy sit-com
or something and let the pressure off.
So, you know, ask yourself
what would you do if all your devices
got locked in a room for 30 days
and you couldn't touch them?
Would you have withdrawals?
Would you get nervous?
Would you get anxious?
A lot of people would.
And that's why they're actually considering
in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
putting in a diagnosis for addiction to the internet
or addiction to devices,
because some people are so consumed
and their self worth is impacted
by how they think they're being received by strangers.
How many likes they get or followers they get or whatever
by people you don't know.