Simple Living: How Connected Do You Want To Be?

In pursuing a simple, thoughtful life, have you given much consideration to how connected you want to be?

Our culture currently places premium value on being connected to everyone everywhere all the time. You have an internet connection, an email account, a Facebook profile, a cell phone, a BlackBerry...is there, in fact, any time when you are NOT accessible to the world at large in one way or another?

Connectivity is not all bad. We want to be deeply connected to our families, our friends, and our local communities, and we need those relationships. But does your technology use foster those deep and meaningful connections or does it in fact detract from them?

I recently read the fabulously titled Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age and found it a helpful framework for examining my own use of technology. The author examines thinkers and innovators from history who lived during similar times of technological change in order to consider ways we might use our technological connectedness as an advance rather than becoming enslaved to it.

On this blog we have long advocated for simple and deliberate living. For most of us, pulling the plug entirely is not really an option, so it behooves us to give careful thought to how we might best navigate our hyper-connected society. If you've considered these things for yourself or your own family, how have you found ways to take the best of technology while still maintaining space for depth and reflection?

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