unPHILtered: The Way I See It by Phil Robertson Read Free Book Online

of someone’s personality!
    Sadly, we don’t carry on conversations with our neighbors, our coworkers, or even our family members anymore. Insteadof actually talking to them, we send each other text messages, tweets, direct messages, and e-mails. What happened to actually hearing a loved one’s voice? The best days of my life were spent with my boys, brothers, and friends in a duck blind for hours, sharing stories and memories and laughing together as we waited for the ducks to come in. When was the last time you had a truly meaningful conversation with your spouse or children? When was the last time you walked next door to your neighbors’ house, sat on the front porch, and talked with them over a glass of tea? We spend so much time on Twitter, My Page, Your Page, MyTube, YouTube, LinkedIn, LinkedOut, Pinterest, and all of these other social media sites that we don’t have any worthwhile interaction with anyone. Instead of talking with our mouths, we’re letting our fingers do the talking. It isn’t healthy.
    As someone who has never owned a cell phone or computer, I’ve wondered about the reasons behind the social media explosion in our country. The only answer I can come up with is that Americans are basically bored and nosy. Nowadays, minding your own business is extremely rare. I’m warning you, folks: if you don’t put down your cell phones and get off Facebook and Twitter, digital dementia is right around the corner. Digital dementia is capturing our souls, and we’re cultivating a generation of robotic nerds.
    Social media and our desire to know everyone else’s business are consuming us more and more every day. The IDC study revealed that 70 percent of smartphone users are frequent Facebookvisitors, with more than half of them logging on every single day. On average, the study found, smartphone users visit the Facebook application 13.8 times per day, for two minutes and twenty-two seconds each time. And that’s only while using their smartphones! As soon as they get home, I’m sure they’re turning on their laptops and iPads. On average, Americans spend about twenty-three hours per week e-mailing, texting, and using social media. That’s 14 percent of the time in a week!
    Imagine what you could do with the time you’re spending on your mobile devices and computers. You could actually talk to your spouse and kids, volunteer at a food bank or school, throw the football in the backyard, or take your kids hunting or fishing. Heck, some people spend so much time on Facebook that if they stopped they could actually get a job! But people rarely seem to put their cell phones down, no matter what they’re doing. They check Facebook while they’re shopping, while at the gym, and while cooking. People even use their cell phones while they’re at the movies! Let me get this straight: you’re going to get hosed for a ten-dollar ticket to the movies, and then you’re going to spend the entire two hours looking at your phone? Hey, how about actually watching the movie?
    I can’t figure out why Americans are so preoccupied with what everyone else is up to. Evidently, people are starved for something they don’t have or couldn’t keep. They want to know what their friends are doing, where they’re going, and what they’re eating for dinner. It seems like we’re envious of each otherand dissatisfied with our own lives. Talk about putting yourself in a depression. Why would you want to know what your ex-girlfriend is doing in Texas or California? Or what kind of truck some guy you barely knew in high school bought? Do you know the worst part about social media? People don’t know when to be quiet. Do I really need to know how many times you’ve flossed your teeth today or that you’ve lost forty-two pounds with some miracle diet drug? People on social media can’t see you yawning from the boredom, so they keep yapping away.
    According to researchers at the Pew Research Center, 73 percent of adults in the