“No, not like that you idiot. You suck on it, not blow on it!”
I had no idea how to smoke a cigarette, but I was going to learn no matter what.
It was 1984 and I was in the second grade; the youngest of 5 kids in a blended family.
Three of my older siblings decided we should start trying Mama and Daddy’s cigarettes.
I didn’t really want to smoke, but I was coaxed into it.
The theory was if I smoked I couldn’t tell on anyone else for smoking.
If you think about it, that’s pretty smart for a bunch of kids dumb enough to smoke.
And make no mistake, once I got the hang of it, nobody had to talk me into it anymore.
I was so cool. How many 8-year-olds can blow smoke rings?
After getting busted (literally) a couple of times, I quit.
Smoke rings weren’t worth picking out your own switches and getting your mouth washed out with soap.
Later my dad gave up smoking and hasn’t touched a cigarette in 35 years.
There was a point in time where smoking was everywhere; homes, workplaces, restaurants, even airplanes!
Recently my family took a trip to Gatlinburg for vacation.
If you’re unfamiliar, Gatlinburg is a beautiful, touristy town in the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee.
Their downtown is a cross between Branson, Missouri and your county carnival.
When I would go as a kid, everyone seemed to be walking around with a giant sweet tea in one hand and a Marlboro Light in the other.
However, on this last trip, I noticed something.
Hardly anyone was smoking and when they were, everyone around the smoker was staring at them like they were zoo animals.
Have you noticed the dramatic decrease in smoking?
When you see someone smoking you might even feel like you are looking into a time machine.
In general, we finally recognized the obvious negative impact of smoking.
It’s a no-win situation with zero upside.
That is unless you’re Keith Richards. Man, that dude makes smoking look good.
I truly believe in the next couple of decades you may see the same thing happen to our digital lives.
This problem may not have the health effects of smoking (although there are real health effects from staring at your phone all day), but it is more widespread than smoking ever was.
Think about it.
Not everyone smoked back in the day.
And other than our household growing up, most children didn’t smoke.
But do you know who all has a phone and stares at it all day now?
Every Freaking Body!
Old, young, rich, poor, every race, nationality, and insert any cliche you want here.
Everybody is digitally cluttered and for some reason, we think that makes it okay.
The same was said with smoking. Well, everyone (which wasn’t true) does it, so it can’t be too bad.
The tobacco companies lied to us, but really we lied to ourselves.
We didn’t need them to distort the truth. We would do it to ourselves.
It may be entirely possible that people from Silicon Valley and the 24-hour news networks may one day be dragged into court and in front of Congress and be forced to testify as big tobacco did.
In fact, Mark Zuckerburg, founder of Facebook, already has.
But just like smoking, we shouldn’t need the people who make a living distracting us to admit what they are doing.
We are grown men and women.
We have the ability to deduce that this can’t be good for us or our children.
Yes, the digital clutter has added some value to our lives, but it hasn’t added enough value to justify the time, energy, attention, and emotion we give it.
The next time you go to the grocery store and have to stand in line, take a look at what everyone else is doing. They are staring mindlessly into their phone. We can’t even wait 2 minutes without “lighting up” so to speak.
Now pretend they are all smoking instead.
Gross, isn’t it?
It may be time to take a look at your own digital habits and start looking for a way to cut back while you still can.
p.s.
And yes, I get that Explainer Videos are digital, however, they do a wonderful job of cutting through all of the smokin...I mean digital clutter and getting your message across!
