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This article is from Today's
Native Father, issue #125, January/February, 2003. Related articles from this issue: |
Addicted to E-mail? Not me! A letter to mothers by Ilva Hertzler |
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I was talking to my editor/husband about this letter to you. He said, “You wouldn’t want to write about e-mail addiction, would you?” Whhaaaat! Me! Addicted? To e-mail? Not a chance! I only check my mail ten times a day or less. I remember when we first got the computer. I could NOT understand it. It was a threat to my well-being and sanity. I was computer challenged with a capital “ESC.” Nor did I have the language to tell my husband what I didn’t understand. Let’s say things were tense in our home for a while. In word processing language, I felt could “Flush Right” out of house at times. My mind was “Block”ed. I felt less than “Bold” and I certainly needed more than a “File Manager.” I had been “Setup.” Formats and Fonts “Merged” with Function Keys in my poor brain. Oh, I don’t even want to think about those days. Learning e-mail was much the same agony. My husband wrote what HE thought were complete instructions on paper. They looked like gobbledygook to me. One day I said to myself, “I don’t care HOW long I tie up the dial-up line, I don’t care if I break this computer, I don’t care if...(I forget what I said there), I AM going to learn E-MAIL!” It took me three hours to figure everything out. My husband was out on the lake ice-skating while I was in the house hunched over a screen that glared back at me. Don’t tell him, but he DIDN’T have everything written down just right or in order. But no big deal, I figured it out anyway. At the end of those three hours I was exhausted and triumphant. My face was flushed, my neck and back ached and my eyes were bleary. But I DID IT!! And I haven’t stopped since. Recently in a support group I belong to, I was to list some of the major personal needs in my life. Here is what I wrote. I need to be with people. I also need time alone. I need recognition of things I’ve done well. And I need my telephone, computer and printer, and e-mail. So there you have it. If this is addiction, so be it. I love my e-mail. I’ve been touch with friends from the Philippines to Belize to Uganda, not to mention friends and family members across Canada and the US. I even e-mail my friend Verna, who lives just across the lake, and my friend Elma, who lives in the other end of our duplex. E-mail has been a way to keep in touch with my uncles, aunts and cousins. I don’t often get to family reunions, but this is a way that I can “talk” to my loved ones. At a family reunion, I’d never be able to talk to all of them at once, but I can with e-mail. Email has saved us phone and postage costs. Our parents, children and grandchild live a great distance from us. But we hear from them frequently by e-mail. We get to peek into their lives and stay in touch. Loneliness and homesickness become more manageable. Recently I dashed off a letter to some of the young people who grew up with my children. I could not believe how they “came out of the woodwork.” Then they started writing to each other. Unexpectedly, I had re-connected some long lost friends, and the memories that surfaced have been so-o-o-o heart-warming. It would have never happened with snail mail. It would have taken two years or more for one letter to make the rounds. Yet I must confess that I need to be diligent in setting priorities. Before I know it, the morning has sped by and I still have laundry to fold or dishes to wash. Having an easier way to connect means that there are more times to connect. This can take time away that I need with God, my husband and others who want to communicate with me face-to-face (see Internet Infidelity). I must also confess that e-mail messages can be too easy, too thoughtless, too one-dimensional. They won’t be stored among my treasures the way hand-written letters have been. Still, I am thankful that God has provided us this means of communication. I will trust Him to help me keep it under control and in its place. “Exit”ing, Ilva |
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