Something I'm trying to work on is having both my husband and I eat dinner every night without computers or cell phones. We love to go out to eat, in part because it forces us to get away from papers or projects and spend time with just each other. But if there is ever a disagreement about a fact (which happens more than you'd think) one of us pulls out our phone and asks the all-knowing Google. The problem is that once that happens, it's like we invited another person along for the meal because we can't seem to stop looking up information or checking on this or that. Pretty soon we're both reading interesting articles on serial killers and their favorite super heros or how Google glasses are only appealing the the super nerds, etc. We then spout out certain points the article of the article to one another but neither of us are actually listening because we are both trying to synthesize information from our own respective articles.
While I believe learning to a very important thing, at what point do we say enough is enough and start interacting with each other? We finally discussed it and decided that we can be blunt with each other and tell the other person to simply put the phone away. I cannot tell you how much this has helped us communicate more! While we still aren't perfect at it, we're getting better. What's crazy to both of us is that dinner is more fun and we actually learn more about each other than some psychological postulation about mental illness and Superman or Apple's world domination. Without offending Superman or Apple, I think we're both a little happier discussing goals and dreams and the adorableness of our dog. My challenge to whoever is reading this (probably just my grandma and hubs) is to put the phone away and connect with someone rather than the internet.
