The hidden trap of the Internet and mobile phones

I think those who profited from the invention of the Internet and the mobile phone and their subsequent spread throughout the world are smart. However, there is the high possibility that the people who frequently use the Internet and their mobile phones, the ones who were “profited from” so to speak, actually do not know it does not pay.

What I am saying is that there is one trap here. People who often use the Internet and mobile phones are missing the fundamental point that the time one has does not increase. There are only 24 hours in a day. We have to live using those 24 hours. For both managers and new employees, there are 24 hours in a day, with only about eight to ten hours of work time.

We need to review what those hours are actually used for. If we did, we would probably find that a fair amount of time is likely spent using the Internet and our mobile phones. The time that has increased conversely means there is time that has decreased and time that has disappeared. That time is in fact thinking time. Time for contemplating, thinking and coming up with ideas has disappeared. So too has time for making decisions. Another thing that has also disappeared is time for reading books.

This is the same as the thinkers from a hundred years ago warning against newspapers. Arnold Bennett (British novelist, critic and journalist. 1867-1931) observed that there were people who read the newspaper from morning but they wasted the most precious part of the day. He stated that it was important to make better use of quality, undisturbed time in the morning.

This warning against newspapers then became a warning against the radio, then against television, and now it has turned into a warning against the Internet and mobile phones. In short, I am saying that there is a need to examine whether there is a drop in the quality of a day. We need to check whether the quality of the information we come into contact with through the Internet use has fallen.

Review how you use your time

To overcome tough economic times, first it is necessary to review how you use your time. If there is something clearly eating into your time, even if it is associated with a very clever catchphrase or slogan purporting it to be ahead of the times, you need to be brave and eliminate it.

You need to reduce your computer time and redirect that time to something more important. Computers are essential to administration work and engineering work that build machines for example, but their convenience declines significantly once you get to the managerial level.

Further, even searching the Internet and reading the assorted information collected is virtually meaningless for religious leaders like myself, and thinkers. If we don’t mull over the information we get from carefully reading a book that is more complicated and takes longer to read than what is on the Internet, then ideas cannot be created. Frankly speaking, the quality of our ideas will decline if we don’t ensure such “solitary time”.

Likewise, if managers don’t ensure they have solitary time, their managerial judgment will suffer. For that reason, I think that sometimes doing things like practicing silence during Happy Science’s temple seminars is great for escaping the Internet and mobile phone addiction.

Modern conveniences are advancing, but our deprivation of time is considerably great. Review whether you are setting aside important time and check that you do not have an addiction of some sort robbing you of time. I’ll leave you with that thought. (End of quote)