My mother restricted television in our house, especially during the day, believing there were better ways for children to spend their time. I think she was right.  When I became a mother, I continued the tradition of restricting screen time which now meant television, videos and computer games. Virtual reality offered so little to my son's expanding mind, heart and limbs compared to multi-dimensional reality that was out there for the living every single day. This is an opinion I still hold, for children as well as adults.  Aren't we adults still expanding our minds and hearts? I wonder often if people watching reality shows ever ask themselves, why am I watching someone else's reality instead of creating my own?

Next internet and email arrived, but in our home this, too, was off limits to our now elementary-school-aged son.  I also refused to hop on the wagon myself, observing how quickly one of my friends became addicted, living life through the screen on her computer for hours at a time, oblivious to what her children were doing, and hearing via my son the truly disturbing material this friend's son was coming upon through his unrestricted time surfing the net and chatting with "friends." (We now call them cyber bullies.) The internet was a dark force, needing only the tiniest welcome, a couple punches of a button, to explode and take over the innermost spaces of our home, our sanctuary.

What I had missed was the connection this world wide web offered, a facet of the computer age that magnificently supports what I have come to believe life is all about. Community. Love. Harmony. What an incredibly marvelous gateway this technology gives us into understanding more about everyone and everything everywhere in the whole wide world. Our household has long since joined the technological age and I'm happy my son can easily keep in touch with his friends in towns all over eastern Massachusetts, his cousins in different states, his former classmates and teammates on the other side of the country, and the other side of the world for that matter. The world is truly shrinking, the boundaries fading, our connections strengthening. This is a good thing. And I get it now. I understand why, even though there was no clear redeeming value, there were certain guilty pleasures I've never been able to resist. Like People magazine, that I inhaled whenever it crossed my path—at my mother-in-law's, at the doctor's office, at the hair salon. Like television shows on fashion trends—runway shows, makeovers, clothing design competitions, year in and year out, I'm always watching. And now, like the internet—with a couple clicks I can check out what's new with the Twilight crew and saga, who Oprah's talking to, or where Barack or Michelle Obama are today. Connection. Wonderful, critical, life-supporting connection.

And yet, the virtual reality vs. reality dilemma that reared its head for me so many years ago is not resolved. Picture this: a twenty-something couple walks through Boston Gardens, not gazing into each other's eyes, or holding hands taking in spring together through the glow of first love, but holding cell phones, each of them, head down, talking to someone else. A mother scoots around town in the van, not hearing about the kids' day or playing alphabet, but talking on her cell phone while the kids watch a video in back. A family gathers at the dinner table, not for quiet, enriching, uninterrupted sharing, but disjointed phrases interrupted by tones indicating text messages on the teenager's phone, music ring tones announcing Dad or Mom has a call, and beeps from the hand-held video games the youngest child plays out-of-sight under the table.

All the technological connection in the world will not replace, or supersede, being truly present, and connected, in person. In reality. To each other. I do not believe there is a greater gift that one person can give to another person, anywhere, then the gift of true attention. To look one another in the eye, listen with both ears, attune with all faculties, shutting out all other realities, virtual and otherwise, attending completely to the reality of right now, with this person, this is the ultimate, live connection. Without it, the rest can only grow very, very stale.