![\"DSC_0057\"](\"http:\/\/farm9.static.flickr.com\/8063\/8173244243_90213eae90_b.jpg\")
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Three unrelated parents, each on a smartphone at the zoo playground (the lady wearing stripes in the background had two toddlers running around!)<\/em><\/p>\n Recently, I’ve found myself getting a few funny looks. It’s my phone. My regular old cell phone with no gadgets, bells, or whistles. I think it takes pictures, but I wouldn’t know because I’ve never taken one. I use it for… phone calls\u00a0(gasp!).\u00a0<\/em>And that’s it.<\/p>\n Andrew has chosen to forgo a smartphone as well. It’s not that we can’t fit it into the budget or aren’t tech-saavy (well, I’m<\/em> not, but Andrew is pretty up-to-speed with the gadgets and gizmos kids are using these days…). No, it is a conscious choice that we have made so far.<\/p>\n I cannot count how many ridiculous incidents I have witnessed with parents who are supposed to be watching their kids in public but are instead on smartphones checking up on who-knows-what. And then we read this article<\/a> in the Wall Street Journal pretty recently. Most of the incidents I have witnessed are harmless enough, but what I find most troubling is when a child is repeatedly trying to get his\/her parent’s attention and the parent simply cannot be bothered to look up from a screen long enough to connect.<\/p>\n I’m not saying I am the world’s most attentive parent. On the contrary. I have three little boys to check up on; the youngest of whom is always getting into some sort of mischief. I give them a lot of independence. I’m sure there are plenty of parents who are uncomfortable with the amount of space I give my kids at the playground. But. I do not need the temptation of a smartphone during these times. When it comes down to it, I know myself too well to believe that I would refrain from just “checking in” on all the various social media sites that I find interesting while at the playground. \u00a0So no, I’m not on Instagram, or Twitter, or whatever else you can do with smartphones. Eventually, I will join the rest and update to a smartphone.<\/p>\n But for now, I’m happy with my old flip phone. Albeit slightly embarrassed.<\/p>\n For those of you who do own smartphones, how do you manage to keep from checking it every 5 minutes? Do you give yourselves rules about the frequency of usage? Do you find it tempting to whip it out at the playground? Okay. That sounded awfully dirty. But seriously. How has a smartphone changed your parenting?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Three unrelated parents, each on a smartphone at the zoo playground (the lady wearing stripes in the background had two toddlers running around!) Recently, I’ve found myself getting a few funny looks. It’s my phone. My regular old cell phone with no gadgets, bells, or whistles. I think it takes pictures, but I wouldn’t know … Continue reading “Why I Don’t Own a Smartphone”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-3680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motherhood","tag-motherhood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3680"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12358,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680\/revisions\/12358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crumbbums.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}