Alicia - KINETIC MOTIONS

September 7, 2017

Booking Travel is Stressful

No one should feel sorry for me after you read the title of today’s blog post. I feel fortunate that I can pursue my love of travel and know that many people don’t have the opportunity to see the world like I do. But the process of booking travel, or more specifically airline tickets, is not pleasant. It causes me tremendous stress every step of the way.

I feel great excitement every time David and I start to discuss our next trip. We have been traveling together for over 20 years and have visited some amazing places. I quite enjoy the process to research flights and dates and airlines. The evolution of the internet into a space where I can sit on my couch and find almost anything has been quite helpful to me.

Years ago, I had to contact a travel agent or the airline directly and was at their mercy to learn information or find a good deal. Now I can do my research on my own at my leisure. I always challenge myself to find a good itinerary and fair price, and I am capable of spending hours in front of my computer, scouring the internet to find the best fit for me and my family.

My problem is that while I love the chase I don’t necessarily like to pull the trigger of booking travel. Travel is expensive, and for the most part, airlines are not easygoing about changes or refunds. I find it tremendously stressful to click that final button that says “confirm your purchase now” or “click here to finalize your booking.”

With airlines, booking travel seems so final, and it bothers me that I have no control over my purchase once I have made it. If I buy a sweater online and don’t like it then I send it back. I can book a hotel on the internet, and If I change my mind I can cancel with no penalty usually up to 24 hours before the scheduled check-in date. I can buy a new iPhone from Apple, load it and use it and have 15 days to decide if I want to keep it or return it for a full refund.

Some airlines give customers up to 24 hours to change their minds, but for the most part clicking “purchase” is quite final. And unless I am willing to spend hundreds of dollars more for a flexible fare, it can cost me two or three hundred dollars to make a change like a different date or time.

If I want to secure a good price I usually need to make my ticket purchase months in advance. With three young children and a busy schedule it’s hard to make a decision like this so much before we want to travel. If my plans change then it’s either tough luck or pay up.

How did airlines get this kind of power?

I faced this stress last night as David and I sat in front of my computer to check prices and dates for our trip to Israel next spring. We also prefer to travel on a European airline and spend a few days in a different city on our way home from Israel. We like to visit our family and friends in Israel as often as we can, and it’s been a few years since our last trip. Our niece is also joining us for the upcoming trip, so it means booking six tickets (the baby goes on my lap but I still have to pay a small fee for a ticket for her).

I found a great price weeks ago and was too nervous to pull the trigger and make this big purchase. Then I was scared to check prices again the last few weeks in case my great price had disappeared. But last night I dared to check and found an even better deal. While my hands shook as I followed each successive step on the British Airways website, I finally pressed that final button and made the purchase. My gosh it was stressful.

But now the fun part of booking travel begins. Once the stressful part of the airline ticket purchase is over I can focus on the search for a great deal on rental cars in Israel, a few nights of hotels in London and many day trips. I guess the stress is worth it.

September 6, 2017

Extra Innings: Love Them or Hate Them

Are you ready for Sports Wednesday? Are you exhausted, like I am, this morning? As a big baseball fan, I try my best to watch or listen to as many Blue Jay games as I can each season. Quick, efficient games are fun sometimes, but as I love the sport so much, the longer, more drawn out games are great too. And then there’s the games that go into extra innings. Like last night’s game.

I remember Matthew mentioned to me last night, somewhere just after 9:00 pm, that the Blue Jays game versus the Boston Red Sox was moving along rather quickly. It was already the 7^th inning, I believe. Well that was the kiss of death. The Jays were up 2-0, and I knew that meant they would lose their lead and head into extra innings that night.

I was right.

I won’t get into the actual mess of the bottom of the 9^th, where the Blue Jays lost yet another lead at the end of the game. A score of 2-2 at the end of nine innings means extra innings. It could be one more inning, or in the case of last night’s game, ten more innings!

You see, my problem is that I don’t have a strategy in place to watch extra innings in baseball. They are unpredictable by their very nature. Most sports use a set amount of time when the game is tied at the end of regulation. They play five minutes of sudden death in hockey, followed by the dreaded shoot-out. Basketball plays for five minutes, and if they are still tied, they do another five minutes. And so on. It’s rare that they are tied for too many of these five-minute periods.

But baseball? Well, they play on and on, with no time constraint. If the visiting team scores in the top half of the inning then the home team still has a chance. If the home team ties things up, well, they go to the next inning. But if no one scores, they keep playing.

That’s what happened last night. With everyone asleep in my house I made myself comfortable on the couch, ready for a few extra innings of baseball. Then it was 11:00 pm, and it was still going. And I was tired. I still had to make school lunches. Okay, I figured, I would do those then maybe the game would be over.

Nope. I puttered around the house a bit more and by 11:30 pm decided to head to bed and “listen” to the game on the TV in my bedroom. The Blue Jays had so many opportunities to score, and they never did. By midnight I was falling in and out of sleep, trying so hard to follow the game during shorter and shorter periods of wakefulness.

I remember hearing Buck Martinez say, “we are headed to the 16^th inning” and couldn’t believe it was still going. Then I fell asleep. I don’t remember the 17^th or 18^th innings, but I do kind of recall that the Red Sox got a double in the 19^th inning, after 1:00 am. I just knew, I just felt it, that this was it. Hanley Ramirez walked up to the plate and hit a single, which scored the game-winning run. He did it six hours after the game began.

The Blue Jays lost 3-2, early this morning, in 19 innings. I don’t know whether I love or hate extra innings. There is something exciting about them, that keeps you on the edge of your seat, or at least it does for the first few innings. The stress on fans can be rough. Will their team win? Will they lose again? Or will the game go on so long that all we worry about is how exhausted we will be the next day. I was at that point by the 16^th inning, when sleep started to take over.

So today I’m tired, and my team lost. I don’t know if I like extra innings.

September 5, 2017

First Day of School

My sister texted and called me this morning with the simple message, “Happy Mother’s Day.” She was jumping for joy as she sent off her three adorable and active young boys to their first day of school. I sent two of mine off today, and I will admit, I was probably more excited than they were about the start of a new school year. Admit it, parents, you were too.

The day that many children head forward to school across North America is exciting, wonderful, terrifying, happy and sad all rolled up into one. The day after Labour Day is a sure sign that summer is coming to a close and that summer vacation is definitely over. But the end of one chapter is the start of another.

The final couple of weeks (or more in some cases) can be challenging for parents, as many of us balance childcare with a demanding and busy career. Routines and bedtimes are out the window, kids have too much free time, the house becomes messy and no one behaves. I was ready for the first day of school last week.

My kids did not wake up early, eager and excited for the day ahead, today. I had to rouse them from a deep sleep this morning, and they meandered downstairs more like zombies than kids about to embark on their first day of a new school year. The baby was perky and was definitely ready to have the house back to herself.

Lunches and school bags were loaded, breakfast was consumed and off we went, the whole family, to drop off the two big kids for their first day of school. Matthew has hit the age when he is embarrassed to show affection towards his father in public and asked me to drop him off in his classroom. Julia hung on to my hand like we were stuck together with Gorilla Glue.

The school hallways were packed with parents, teachers and students, all trying to find their way to their classrooms. It was hard to move more than a few steps without stopping to say hello to a friend or trip over a toddler. The mood was definitely boisterous.

It can be overwhelming for a child of any age to walk into his or her new classroom on the first day of school. My children go to a small, wonderful school, in downtown Toronto, called Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School (more about this great school in a future post), where there is one class per grade. I often call it a village in the middle of a huge city. All the children know each other, all the teachers know all the children and many of the parents know each other too.

Walking into Paul Penna every morning is like coming home to a big family. There is something comfortable and comforting, and I think my children know that. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have those first day jitters when they entered their classrooms this morning.

Who am I sitting with? Where is my desk? Will my friends greet me warmly? Will my teacher like me? Where do I put all my stuff? So many questions cross the minds of children on their first day of school. That leap into a new classroom, in a new grade, can definitely be jarring. I believe that after a few minutes, for my children at least, once they hugged their friends, found their desk and put their stuff away most of the nerves disappeared.

My kids will be home in a couple of hours from their first day of school. I am looking forward to hearing about their day and getting them ready for their second day of school. A new school year has begun, hurray! Happy Mother’s (and Father’s) Day!

September 4, 2017

Quest to Find the Best French Fries

Over the Labour Day weekend my family spent a wonderful few days at my uncle’s cottage in Minden Hills in Ontario. But this post is not about enjoying a cottage or Labour Day weekend. This post is about French Fries.

What does a visit to a cottage in the countryside have to do with French Fries, you wonder? Everything, I say. You see, I love French Fries. I don’t just love any variety. They have to come from good potatoes and must be cooked with care. Let me explain.

If I had my way, a well-balanced meal would be French Fries and ice cream, my two loves. My ice cream post will come another day, as today is all about the fried potato.

People around the world love to fry and eat potatoes. I believe both the Belgians and the French claim to have invented this delicacy, which has roots all the way back to the 17^th century. Fries, frites, chips, whatever you want to call them, I am not the only person to love this fried goodness.

The best way, in my opinion, to eat French Fries, is from a truck or stand that lives on the side of a road or highway. Chip wagon. Shack. Fry stand. Whatever you want to call it, this is where to find the best eats. I am not a fan of the places that make a variety of foods and claim to have great fries but, in reality, have bags of pre-cut potatoes in a vast freezer in the back. I don’t care how much oil you use to fry them up, those are not French Fries.

My first favourite fry shack on the side of the road belonged to “Fry Guy.” To this day, I don’t know his name, but wow did he make them well. He built a small shed beside a gas station on the way up to our family’s country house, and it was hard for us to pass that place without stopping for a snack. Fry Guy was a retired history teacher who had a knack for making great fries and great conversation. His shack wasn’t so clean and he was eventually shut down. Maybe it was the dirt that made his food taste so good?

Fry Guy was replaced by Fry Girls, and up the road we also discovered Fry People. And I have tried so many more, most of whom were not honoured by a special name from me.

So, what makes a roadside French Fry just so tasty and enticing to the palette? First of all, as I mentioned above, it has to start with a good potato. Then the potato must be hand cut, with the skin left on. It has to be fried in very hot oil, to make it soft in the inside and crispy on the outside. A bit of salt to finish it off is key.

I believe all good fry stands follow this basic formula, and of course they all make it theirs in their own way. For example, in Quebec, I enjoy frites, which are much thinner and stringier. I find them, for the most part, much greasier, but that’s okay. Also, in Quebec, frites are typically served in a paper bag. My favourite frites stand is on highway 329, deep in the Laurentians, between the towns of Ste Agathe and Saint Donat. Yum. Yes, I enjoyed my fill a couple of weeks ago while we visited the area.

I found a fry stand this past weekend on the way to my uncle’s cottage that I simply adored. The Queen of Fries Chip Truck is located in the village of Norland, and I give them permission to include the word “Queen” in their name. The potatoes they use are local, they are hand cut, with skin on, and their oil was super-hot to produce a perfectly cooked fry. We devoured the family size.

No matter how many French Fries I eat I can never get my fill. Which is why I am on a quest to find the best French Fries. Maybe I need to go on a road trip across Canada, or North America, or do I have to jump over to Europe? I could travel for days, weeks or maybe even months, testing out the best there is from Vancouver Island to Eastern Newfoundland, from Northern Ontario down into Texas. Or maybe a hop over to the back roads in England, over the Channel and through French and Belgian villages?

Tell me where your favourite French Fries, frites or chips place is, no matter where you live. I hope to visit them all. Post me a note on Facebook, leave a comment here, or Tweet me @AliciaRichler. This is going to be fun!

September 1, 2017

What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up?

While on a walk in our neighbourhood earlier this week, my daughter, Julia, suddenly announced to me that she has decided what she wants to be when she grows up. She said, “Mommy, I am going to be an inventor, and also a police woman.” She smiled at me and skipped along the sidewalk and didn’t say anything more about it.

The following day, in the car, Julia brought up the subject again. She told me she definitely wants to be an inventor. She said she already has a whole bunch of things she wants to invent, like a special kind of stroller and a time machine. Julia is very sure of herself and possesses a special kind of confidence and charisma that I lack. She is a little girl, who loves to play with her dolls and swing in the park. But she is also sophisticated and shows me hints of the woman she will be one day.

Julia made me think about what I wanted to be when I grew up and how my ambitions changed over the years. There are many children who know early on what they want to be when they grow up and actually do follow through. There are many children who don’t think about this at a young age but eventually find their way to success. Then there’s people like me.

When I was Julia’s age, I decided I wanted to be a doctor. I had no idea what it meant to study at medical school or be an actual physician, but through most of my childhood and teenage years I was sure of my future. As I have written in previous posts, I eventually realized that a career in medicine was not for me and switched to a career path centred on writing and communications. I have jumped around that path for many years, but at age 41, I now know I made the right choice.

It must be very hard for children and youth today to make a decision about what they want to be when they grow up. There is no job security and people are retiring at a later age and holding on to those precious few jobs. Many young people are seeing their dreams crushed when they can’t find a job or make any money with the career of their choice.

But that doesn’t mean we should not encourage our children to dream and to dream big. I remember many years ago, when my parents asked me, my brother and sister what we wanted to be when we grew up. My brother was into Lego at the time (okay he still is but that’s for another day) and answered he wanted to be an architect. I stated that I wanted to be a doctor. Then my sister, who was quite young at the time, announced that her dream was to be a cocktail waitress.

This became a family joke for a long time, but I give my parents credit. At the time, they didn’t laugh at my little sister or put her down. They simply told her, in a very sweet way, to follow her dream. My sister did not become a cocktail waitress, but she did grow up to be a successful and much admired entrepreneur who runs her own business, helps other people grow their businesses, is a busy mother to three young boys and an incredible athlete.

When Julia told me she wanted to be an inventor and a police woman I smiled at her and simply told her to follow her dream. Sure, it sounds a bit silly, but I want my daughter to be whatever she wants to be when she grows up. I want all three of my kids to be whatever they want to be when they grow up.

Little Nessa is only 15 months old, and her dream, at this point in her life, is to grow up and be just like her big brother and sister. Her pediatrician, by coincidence, shares her name. The staff are always amused when Nessa’s name is called, when Dr. Nessa treats Baby Nessa. When at the doctor this week, Dr. Nessa joked with me that she paused for a moment when Baby Nessa’s name was called. I laughed and looked at my baby and said to her, “You are not Dr. Nessa, you are just Baby Nessa.” Then it was my turn to pause, and I looked at my little baby and said to her, “But one day, you can be Dr. Nessa if that’s what you wish.”

What do you want to be when you grow up? My advice, whatever you wish.

August 31, 2017

Forward to School

School starts on Tuesday. In how many hours is that? Everyone talks about the kids going back to school, but this week I heard it stated another way, forward to school. I like that. Starting a new school year is not about going backwards, it’s about moving forward. My kids will start a new grade, with new school supplies and new shoes. I hope they will make new friends, renew old friendships and maybe even learn something new too.

I am ready to move forward to school. The last week of summer vacation is hard on all parents. We love our children and we love to spend time with them. But really, the first day of school is a blessing for parents. All routines in our house have disappeared and there is too much screen time happening. They have been going to bed late and sleeping in (well one sleeps in and the other two get up early).

Julia’s bedroom floor is covered in discarded clothes and toys. Matthew prefers to wear his pyjamas all day. Nessa refuses to nap. I am trying to balance work and quality time with the kids that does not include screaming at them or cleaning up their messes.

Yes, I am ready to move forward to school.

I believe that the start of a new school year is the perfect time to start new routines and set new rules in the house. As children get older they can take on some responsibilities. The questions for me are, what responsibilities, and how much do I give them?

My daughter is messy – okay, she is really messy. Her bedroom can easily move from clear skies to hurricane status in minutes when she plays in there. Clothes, dolls, toy kitchen accessories and tiny knick knacks seem to be everywhere. When she wants to avoid her little sister, she finds other key spots in the house to play, and as the summer winds down and she is home a lot, her messes are everywhere.

She responds well to rewards and punishments, but there are no set rules of how to govern her behaviour. The messier her bedroom and surrounding rooms become, the more disorganized she becomes. She has a tendency to lose things as her piles build. Not great for the start of school. So, we need to put a system in place as we move forward to school.

My son is actually quite a neat and tidy child. In his case, he responds well when given tasks and chores that show him we respect that he is getting older. He easily switches from an active and vibrant kid to a lazy adolescent who starts glassy-eyed at the TV or iPad. So, I have to catch him before that screen turns on.

I have to move forward with regular small chores, like making his bed in the morning, throwing laundry in the basket, setting and clearing the kitchen table at meal time and helping watch his baby sister when I am making dinner.

Then there is homework. My kids do not receive a ton of homework, but once school ramps up they both expect to have some most days. Some assignments may be due the following day, end of the week or weeks later. This year I need to set up a routine for doing homework in the house. The kids each need a consistent place and time to do their homework each day, as they both respond well to routine. And that has to happen from day one once they go forward to school.

So, today is Thursday, which means five more sleeps until the early morning preparations happen to get the kids up and out the door for their first day of school. I will let them laze around in their pyjamas, screens on and toys scattered for a few more days. And then we get serious and focus on a new school year. My very best to everyone as we get ready to go forward to school.

August 30, 2017

Have You Ever Participated in a Weird Sport?

It’s time for Sports Wednesday – a little later in the day, I know – but really, it’s never too late for Sports Wednesday. Today I was thinking about alternative activities. There’s the mainstream sports that are popular throughout North America, such as baseball, basketball, hockey, football and even soccer. Other popular activities (some are sports and others may be more in the category of hobbies) are everything from skiing and curling to bowling and darts to swimming and skating. So, I was thinking, have you ever tried a weird sport?

Thanks to everyone’s friend, Mr. Google, I have been searching around the internet today to see what’s out there in the category of weird sport, and wow, human beings do some strange things!

I found a great article from the Huffington Post that gave me a list that made me laugh out loud as I read it. Have you ever participated in a Wife Carrying competition? Did you know there are even world championships for this competitive sport? This is aweird sport that originated in Sonkajarvi, Finland, in which husbands carry their wives, as fast as they can, through an obstacle course. It’s not too late to enter into the North American competition this year, which happens on October 7, 2017, in Sunday River, Maine.

What is the strangest place you have ever played hockey? And I’m not talking about an ice rink near the equator or a parking lot in China. How about under water? Have you heard of Octopush, which is competitive hockey in a pool? It’s not some game played by drunk frat boys in a small Canadian town. It’s for real. Strap on the speedo, hold your breath, jump in the pool (with a hockey stick of course), and try your best to shoot the puck into the opposing team’s goal.

Chess Boxing baffles me. Chess is all about beating your opponent with your brain. Boxing is all about beating up your opponent, including that person’s brain. So how can a sport exist that goes back and forth between punching each other’s lights out and sophisticated strategy? And yet it does. There is even a World Chess Boxing Organization, and their motto is, “fighting is done in the ring and wars are waged on the board.” Sure.

I could continue my Google searches for hours, and I know I would find tons and tons of activities under weird sport. How about cheese rolling or extreme ironing? Shin kicking? Fireball soccer? Giant Pumpkin regatta? Sepaktakraw (special kind of volleyball in Japan, but no hands allowed)? Face pulling contest?

The photos and descriptions show people having fun, which I guess is really what matters. And what’s mainstream for one person may be weird to another, and vice versa. Have you participated in a weird sport? Leave me a comment here, post on Facebook or Tweet at me @AliciaRichler..

August 29, 2017

Extreme Weather is Headed Your Way

I am a weather watcher, as I discussed in a previous post. For the most part I follow local weather and like to know the general current and future weather patterns crossing over my city. Will it be warm today? Is it going to rain tomorrow? Should I worry about a smog alert? For the most part, the weather in Toronto is quite tame. We experience four distinct seasons and can expect everything from heat and cold alerts to big rainfalls and massive snowstorms. But is it just me, or are there more extreme weather systems lately? And I’m not talking about just Toronto, but all over the world.

This past week all eyes have been on Hurricane Harvey. This massive, slow-moving storm has wreaked havoc on southeastern Texas in the United States and destroyed everything in its path. Hurricanes are not new, and there have been dozens of them that have been catastrophic. Hurricane Hazel in 1954 changed the city of Toronto forever. Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma caused death and destruction in 2005 in the United States. David crashed through the Caribbean and United States in 1979 and killed over two thousand people.

While hurricanes are big weather events that rightly attract tremendous attention, I believe that in general we are experiencing more extreme weather.

My own city of Toronto saw so much rainfall this spring that there was flooding. The average rainfall for May, for example, is 73 mm. However, over 142 mm fell in May 2017. Heavy rain fell day after day, the water levels rose in Lake Ontario and flooded lakeside communities and the Toronto Islands. While most of the heavy rain has subsided, it’s rare this summer to have a few days straight with sunshine and no forecast of rain.

On the other side of extreme weather, wildfires are causing tremendous damage in communities in Western Canada. Last year it took over two months to bring massive fires under control in and around Fort McMurray, Alberta. Right now, with extreme temperatures and not enough rain, fires are ravaging British Columbia.

As I read in an article from Global News, “B.C. remains under a state of emergency as more than 100 wildfires continue to burn across the province. This season is now B.C.’s worst fire season in history and it is far from over.”

It’s not hard to find other extreme weather and its consequences all over the world. Tornadoes, mud slides, monsoons, flooding, record heat. I am not a meteorologist or a climatologist, but common sense tells me our world is changing. And I believe that we, as human beings, are accelerating those changes. From the worst wildfires to record temperatures to highest rainfall in one day, this is our reality today. Extreme weather is our present and our future. Let’s try to be a kinder to our planet, please?

August 28, 2017August 29, 2017

Drive Driving in the Car all Along Highway 401

Highway 401 between the cities of Montreal and Toronto is one of the most boring routes on which a person can drive. If you are someone who lives in a village, farm, town or city along this route, I am sure your home is beautiful, but I am sorry to say, that highway is just awful.

I have been traveling along Highway 401 for my whole life. I grew up in Toronto but have a ton of family who live a few hundred kilometres away in Montreal. My parents actually moved from Montreal to Toronto a few weeks before I was born, so in my early years I spent a lot of time, with my siblings in the back seat of our car, shuttling between the two cities.

I know Highway 401 so well that I can name off many of the towns and their related exit numbers between the two cities. Just a couple of weeks ago my sister went as far as to call me a savant when I knew all the names of the towns she passed at certain exits along the route (as I sat in Toronto). Exit 696 is Brockville; 497 is where you will find the Big Apple; 798 is Cornwall; 543B is Belleville (but of course also the road that takes you to Tweed). I could go on and on.

Different exit numbers and towns connect with various stories and memories of my childhood, teenage years and adulthood. I will admit that most are happy memories, and you may ask why then do I find this highway so boring?

I guess it’s because it is just hundreds of kilometers of long, rather straight highway, where most of the views are the same. Or maybe it’s because I have gone back and forth so many times. I enter Highway 401 in the centre of Toronto, around exit marker 367, and continue on as it switches to highway 20 in Quebec, at exit 825.

Those first 130 kilometers can be really rough sometimes, as we fight Toronto traffic. If we leave Toronto at the “wrong” time of day (in other words rush hour), it could easily take two hours to get to the Big Apple at exit 497. Sometimes that first 130 kilometers seem interminable. If we are lucky enough to miss an accident or construction, the 500’s and 600’s can fly by. But somehow, always, there is a lane closure or potholes or repaving somewhere in the 700’s to slow us down. I won’t even start on the construction delays once we cross the Quebec border.

I was lucky enough this summer to skip the long drive along Highway 401 from Toronto to Montreal. Matthew and I flew to Montreal after our special weekend in Chicago. But yesterday, after a week with family in Saint Donat, our family of five drove that long way back along the 401.

The drive home, on a beautiful Sunday in August, is always long. While I love the Laurentian Autoroute, with its twists and turns, mountains, lakes and stunning vistas, it is also always under construction and always jammed up with traffic. It took us almost three hours, from our start in Saint Donat, to reach the Ontario border and start of Highway 401. As we experienced the thrill of completing a part of our drive, the sober reality of hundreds of kilometers of the boring Highway 401 ahead made me depressed.

My two older kids gorged on junk food and iPads while the baby drifted between sleep and screaming. David did a mighty fine job driving the full distance. We actually only hit big traffic in Toronto’s eastern suburbs. Around us was the usual mix of aggressive drivers. There were some who drove their vehicles so close to our car at times that I could see the plaque on their teeth in my rear-view mirror and others who changed lanes so often that it seemed they were trying to weave a quilt with their car.

No, I don’t like Highway 401 between Toronto and Montreal. I like my home and I like my destination, but that route in between is boring, stressful and exhausting. All three kids were ecstatic to jump out of the car when we arrived home last night. They too clearly had enough. For now, that’s what we have, and I guess that’s the route we will take. The destination, and the family at the other end, are worth it.

August 24, 2017

We are Smartphone and Tablet Addicts

I love my Apple products. My MacBook, iPhone and iPad are always nearby. Some would say that it’s disappointing that I don’t have an iWatch or iPod too. I will admit that I am slightly manually operated, but I have come to love and embrace my technology products. And I believe that I am not unique. I am almost embarrassed to admit that in my household we own three laptops, three iPads and two iPhones. We may be on the edge of being smartphone and tablet addicts.

I found a survey from 2016 that showed that 76% of Canadians own and use a smartphone. That was up from 68% in 2015 and 55% in 2014. Common sense tells me that the number has increased in 2017 and undoubtedly has surpassed 80%. Among my close family and friends, I would say that number is actually 100%.

Everyone around me seems to own at least one smartphone and usually at least one tablet and/or computer as well. We carry our smartphones with us everywhere we go. Some would even joke that we would remember to take our smartphones with us before we remember to take our children.

People’s eyes are glued to their technology as they walk in the mall, commute to work or relax on the couch at home. What did we do with our time before we had smartphones? Did we actually stand in line and look around us or talk to the person beside us? When we sat on the bus on the way to work, did we actually read a newspaper or a paper-based book? When we waited for our friend to arrive at the local café, what did we do with those three minutes?

Children are the technology generation. I will never forget the moment when my daughter, Julia, about two years old at the time, showed her grandmother how to use an iPad. Well, kind of. Julia crawled across the table at the Apple store, swiped her fingers across the iPad, tapped on Angry Birds and began to play. One-year-old Nessa sees a screen and immediately taps on it, as she knows it will respond.

As I write this blog I am also hollering at Julia to get off her iPad and get dressed, brush her hair and make a card for her cousin. She doesn’t hear me and doesn’t even notice I am standing beside her, raising my voice. She is focused solely on the game on her screen. Clearly My Town Home, Minecraft, Plants vs Zombies and a whole host of other apps are more interesting and more important than listening to her mother.

The word “wait” has taken on a new meaning in my life the last couple of years. People around me, usually my kids, have to finish a game move, a YouTube video or a text before they can talk to me. It seems to be smartphone or tablet first, face-to-face communication second.

Can you think of a time you may have walked into someone on the street because your face was down, focused on your smartphone? Have you ever missed your stop on the bus or subway because you were too engrossed in your What’s App conversation? Have you ever sat at a meeting at work, with your smartphone hidden under the table as you text your best friend, then realize that your boss is asking you a question – and you have no idea what to answer because you missed the whole meeting?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you are a smartphone or table addict. And that’s okay. Technology is part of our lives today. Maybe sometimes we go a bit too far and forget about the world around us. Sometime we ignore our mother when she is asking us to make our bed or brush our teeth. Maybe we need to look up and listen up a little more.

In the meantime, back to my eight different games on Words with Friends. I have to keep my winning streak going against my brother-in-law.