LASt Time We Met…

LASt
LASt
Nov 6 · 6 min read

I’ll give you a call, or maybe I’ll text you, or I’ll snapchat or… maybe I’ll do this or maybe I’ll do that

If I knew that one day in my life that a good amount of my information and new information would be stored in something small that I keep in my pocket and that I would freak out whenever I would lose it, I would have told you that you were crazy. When I was younger, I never dreamed of technology that was so small that could have an impact on you as much as a phone has. Now I can not think of a time when I did not have a phone with me.

There are so many things that are helpful with a phone, but there are also many things that can be distracting….. sorry I just had to check a message that my friend sent. Where was I, oh yeah, I was just about to talk about something important and I almost forgot. The many things that are literally at our fingertips can be so entertaining and helpful, but it many of the times leads us to become too focused on being aware of what is going on in the world or allows us to stay connected in anyway that we feel is necessary.

One major area in which distraction from a phone is evident through the media is from the many instances where drivers have been found, have been in accidents, or have hit someone because of these small devices. Many have different perspectives on this, but to present the severity that these distractions can cause there have been two fairly recent instances that I found shocking and I hope that you do as well.

The first instance occurred in South Carolina where a Kershaw County deputy, Chelsea Cokrell was hit by an SUV in a school zone outside of Lugoff Elementary. The entire instance was caught on camera from her dash camera on her vehicle. When it comes to injuries she only had a few cuts and bruises for the car driving too fast within the school zone. This though she left with only a few injuries it is fascinating that the Sheriff Lee Boan said that it sometimes takes an incident like this that “opens people’s eyes up” and it gets people’s attention for awareness of safety ().

Kentucky is the next state we head to in the states to see another instance of where distraction can bring light to the distractions that cellphones can have while driving. Sometimes people are not as lucky and they die because of these distractions and that is just what happened on I-64 near the Kentucky River Bridge in Franklin County. A truck driver, Jerry Elder Jr. was distracted by watching a video on his cell phone while driving and smashed into 61-year-old Jeffery Curtis’s Jeep in a work zone.

The third story leads us to Louisiana where Edward Pratt of The Advocate presents his take on an instance where he was affected by a distracted driver. This occurred at an intersection leaving his subdivision where he was behind who he called a “cellphone-a-holic” (). The light that was at this subdivision was one that seemed to take ages to change in the morning and Pratt was glad to see the light changed when it did, but to his dismay none of the 10 to 12 cars were moving. The so-called cellphone-a-holic was not moving so many drivers began to honk so they could make it through the light. Finally, when the woman (men do it too) moved she still was distracted and on her phone in the passing lane on the highway which only continued many of the “dirty looks” that she was given ().

Now this last one though it seems like an everyday occurrence there was something interesting that was presented in Mr. Pratt’s article. The interesting piece of information that was not brought up in the other two instances was the idea of selfishness that the “cellphone-a-holic” had because she was distracted by whatever was on her phone.

We all can see the selfishness of others and sometimes we can even point it out, but can we see it in our own lives?

We may not be like one of these people who have been on our phones while we drive, but when have you ever been in a conversation with someone and you take a sneak peak at your phone or something else to distract yourself from someone. This is something that has got me thinking and what prompted me to think through this is through once again Jerry Bridges book, Respectable Sins where he writes a whole chapter on selfishness.

Bridges presents in his book that there are four areas of selfishness in this chapter that can be considered respectable by ourselves and others. One area is with our interests, meaning the things that we enjoy and like to talk about and look at. Our phones can be an excellent way to become more knowledgeable in our interests and we can talk/text with people who are interesting or who intrigue us. It is not necessarily bad to be interested in something, but when that becomes the forefront to the point where it takes up all of our time… that is when it becomes an issue and as a wise man once said “for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).

Many, myself included, hate to admit when we have a problem and want to say that everything is fine when we know that we spend too much time doing things that can cause us to be too focused on ourselves. It sometimes does take instances such as the ones in South Carolina and Kentucky for us to wake up and realize not only that there is an issue with cellphones and driving, but also that there is a deeper issue at hand. We can miss the wonderful opportunities we have to connect with others in person when we decide to put our faces into our phones sometimes and I am just as guilty of it as everyone else. I focus too much on what I feel as though is important that I miss an opportunity to connect with others who really matter more than another meme from Star Wars that my friend sent me.

With this in mind I have a few questions for not only myself, but for you as well…

When does something take you away from being in the moment?

When have your interests become more important than others?

How would you feel if someone was distracted in front of you and you wanted to talk with them?

Articles on each instance

Louisiana Edward Pratt:

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/ed_pratt/article_36e76b6c-fc27-11e9-88a9-8701af157b36.html

Pratt, E. (2019, November 1). Edward Pratt: Im tired of cellphone-a-holics causing havoc on Louisiana roads. Retrieved November 5, 2019

South Carolina County Deputy:

https://www.wltx.com/article/news/local/south-carolina-deputy-struck-by-suv-in-school-zone/101-c08f0ba9-2326-4a5e-a97a-1d06146a7f2e

Kurzyne, J. (2019, October 24). ‘I did not see him coming’: Deputy describes getting hit by texting driver. Retrieved November 5, 2019,

Kentucky Semitruck Driver:

https://www.wdrb.com/news/semitruck-driver-charged-with-murder-after-crash-police-say-he/article_ebb159ec-eba4-11e9-ba6d-87af0acc185e.html

Corsey, G. (2019, October 11). Semitruck driver charged with murder after crash; Police say he was watching video on cell phone. Retrieved November 5, 2019

Take a look at these to continue the conversation…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZP1wEwWO8E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kl9EjTqoxF4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BULmnRuZYSM

My Other Blogs

First post on what my blog is:

https://medium.com/@sche2236/last-time-we-met-2f18d1cb3c3e

First discussion:

Second discussion:

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