Guest Post: Erin from Happy Owl

Hi there! I've been lucky enough to know Danielle a couple years now and you might have seen me in a guest post here and there. My name is Erin from Happy Owl and I have two beautiful sons Noah and Logan and an amazing husband named Mike. We live in Juneau, Alaska and love to explore all that our town has to offer.

My family spent 10 days in Maui a couple of weeks ago and the funniest of things happened. While we were enjoying our first night in paradise, playing in the pool, my iphone fell in the water. Ahhh! My 2 month old phone, still shiny and new, wet and broken! Who would have thought that something like this would have sparked an eye-opening discussion with my husband and a new outlook on self for me. So here goes. My embarrassing, yet real reality I had to face. By far the best gift I got from our vacation.

The first thing I thought when I realized my poor pitiful phone was not coming back on was pure sadness. How am I going to connect; take pictures, read emails, update my blog and facebook? I told Mike immediately, we need to get some rice, soak up the moisture, get my phone back working!! That's when my sweet husband looked at me and in his nicest way said, "Erin, you are addicted to social networking."

Of course at first I said, "no, ME?!! I don't blog everyday, and barely use twitter. I mainly use it for pictures!!"

Mike just laughed and said, "sure..." and that was the end of that discussion. However, it left me thinking. I took a little walk with Logan and really dug deep down and thought about what Mike had said. Too much social networking, for me, could it be true? Come to find out my husband, as most husbands are, was spot on.

Not having my phone made me realize how much I relied on it and the instant gratification and response I could get from it. I was constantly posting pictures on instagram, checking my emails, and reading other blogs, etc. The funny thing was is that I was not spending hours upon hours on the web. But my problem WAS is that I was constantly checking my social networking sites. I thought a couple weeks that I was taking a step back and deleted twitter off my phone. That way I wouldn't check it. But haha! Right about then twitter added a new feature where you are emailed every time someone @ you. So I still found myself responding to people here and there. So really I was just the same.

Now I know so many of you whether you like to admit it or not are doing the same thing. And don't worry, I am NOT calling any of you bad people. There are many good people out there that blog/tweet/facebook daily and I think you still are all fabulous. But all that I want you to think about is would you be able to live without it? Even for a day, week, dare I say month? Taking a step back for me was the best thing that could have happened. I realized that for me, and my family there is so much more than updating status', instagram and facebook. So here is the dare I give to you. Take a day, a whole day away from your smartphones and see how it makes you feel. If there is even a smidge of discomfort then yeah!! Maybe then you'll see how much you relied on the instant joys of social networking. Maybe then, you go on a hike, a campout, even go to the swap meet for a day without updating the world on where you've been, what you ate and what you bought. :) I know for me it's been amazing. Time to get back to making phone calls, writing letters, sending postcards and disconnecting just a bit and enjoying the sweet life. One quiet hour at a time; just as our parents and grandparents still do...

Now I leave you with this commercial I saw the other night. So, so fitting, so funny, so true.




Thanks for listening....erin