A useful little application

I wonder if you, like me, don’t realise quite how much time you spend online, frittering away time?

Do you sometimes feel you need some help to manage the time spent, but aren’t sure how to go about it? I did and I have recently found a web application that has helped greatly.

There are now time management applications that can be set to monitor what you look at and how often you look at them. You can set time limits for various websites, you can block any number of sites or groups of sites, and/or limit the times of day you can view certain sites.

I have used one to limit my Facebook time to 10 mins during 9-5 and 10 mins in the evening. When I have two minutes left, it starts a countdown to when I will be blocked and shows it very clearly. I can imagine it would very useful for those who like to watch lots of online video clips, or get lost in some blogs/news sites for longer than they would like to.

I am using WasteNoTime which works for Safari and Chrome, but the other one I know for Mozilla is called LeechBlock (which Tim Challies also uses & how I heard about such things).

Of course you can get around it, as you set it all up and can change it anytime. But as a reminder and guide to limit the amount of time you want to have online, it’s very worthwhile.

Cyber Parenting

Cyber Parenting: Raising your kids in an online world, James & Simone Boswell

I really liked this book: it is helpful, practical and biblical. The Boswells have done parents of today’s children a great benefit. Being Australian it fits perfectly with our context, although as it deals with an online world, it is appropriate for everywhere.

The most grounding part of this book is the reminder again and again that as parents today we are facing nothing new. Although some technology, social media, gaming, etc are new for our generation, the issues they raise are as old as time. The Boswells take us back to the words of Ecclesiastes, showing that all the issues with technology today are the same issues of the heart that people have faced for thousands of years – be they wisdom, self-control, where we find our value and what we make our idols. I found this incredibly reassuring, for at times I can feel a bit panicky about parenting children in our online world. This helped me to remember that all issues are heart issues and God knows about them all.

It is divided into four parts:

1. The basics: introducing the impact of technology and some basic technological details for those that need it. Here and throughout the book they emphasise again and again it is about the heart. “Parenting is more than setting up eternal rules. Parenting is about getting to the heart of our children, training them in right living, investing in their lives and helping them to understand a biblical world view” (p30).

2. A look at the basics of parenting – how we want to teach our children about the Lord and his word, and train them in godliness and character. With this in mind, they talk about a biblical world view and then many areas of character we want to train our children in: such as honesty, integrity, patience, etiquette, contentment and self-control. While all of these are applied to the world of technology it is clear that these are characteristics we want to raise our children in, no matter whether they are online or offline. This section then moves to consider issues such as trust and responsibility, teaching wise choices and developing maturity. All of this is very helpful.

3. Then they move to address the four main areas of the online world: social networking (with an emphasis on Facebook), cyber bullying, gaming and pornography. This was full of wisdom and practical suggestions, and is essential reading for parents of children who are already online or soon to be.

4. The final section deals with the practical areas of managing your networks, security, passwords and parenting controls. These are the tips to help you set up a safe online environment. Of course, these go alongside the active role of teaching in parenting, yet are useful things to have in place in the home and on various devices.

In the end, this book is an excellent reminder that as parents we are called to parent with wisdom and grace, to be involved and aware, and to deal with issues of the heart. We should have practical boundaries and measures in place, but not rely on them to do the job of parenting for us.

I will definitely continue to refer to this one in years to come as we navigate the online world with our children.

You can see a little bit of it online here.

Triple Zero Kid's Challenge

I came across a great website recently, thanks to our neighbourhood watch newsletter.

The emergency services across Australia have created a Triple Zero Website for children. It's a set of cartoon scenarios which require either police, fire, or ambulance help. It helps kids (kindy and primary schoolers) know what to do in an emergency.

I'm what I call a 'catastrophiser'. I tend to imagine the worst. So I have wondered what would happen if there was an emergency in the house - would the kids know what to do? I even used to wonder if you could ring 000 just to have a practice (but knew we better not).

This website shows kids what counts as an emergency, when to ring 000 and what to say. Even I found it helpful and when I had reason to call 000 for the fire department recently, I knew how the phone conversation would go and I was ready for it.

I think it has sunk in for the kids too, as after we played on the website, they created an emergency game outside, calling 000, asking for fire, or police or ambulance and explaining the situation to each other over the 'phone'.

That was time well spent online.

Get off-line!

I have just read two fascinating posts: one by John Piper and one by Josh Harris, both about using Twitter using church services. John Piper writes:

Josh Harris has done us a good service. He explains why many of us think it's a bad idea to "tweet" while participating in corporate worship. That is, we think you should use Twitter before and after corporate worship to say what you take in and take out. But when you are in corporate worship, Worship! There is a difference between communion with God and commenting on communion with God.

Don't tweet while having sex. Don't tweet while praying with the dying. Don't tweet when your wife is telling you about the kids. There's a season for everything. Multitasking only makes sense when none of the tasks requires heart-engaged, loving attention...

To be honest, it stuns me that these issues even need to be raised. No-one could convince me that being online in a church service, either to Twitter or to Facebook, could possibly help in their ability to sit under the word of God and concentrate.

However, I have been amazed by the number of people I know on Facebook (yes, admission here - I am on Facebook, but not on Twitter) who seem to update their status as they go into church, as they come out of church, and sometimes I suspect in church. And guess what - some of them are ministers!!

Part of me wants to say - who cares really? How much attention to you really pay to people's status updates? Especially from people who are only online 'friends'.

Surely it has to be our priority to encourage the people of God who are with us in person, rather than those out there on-line. Let's have relationships with real people in real time!