What Does This Say About Our Culture of Busy-ness?
“Smart Clip Reminds Parents of Babies Left in Cars”
I don’t even really know where to go with this. I know that the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas showcases all sorts of innovative and crazy technologies, many of which are altogether unnecessary but cool. I get that in the spirit of seeing what can be created, companies often try to design markets around things that nobody needs, but might want.
But this? A clip that fits on to your child’s seat belt to remind you that they are there when you exit your car? Yes, I have heard the (extremely rare and baffling) news reports of harried parents accidentally leaving their children in cars while they go to work all day. And I agree that if even one life can be saved by installing a “Smart Clip” on your child’s carseat, it’s worth it.
But more profoundly, this speaks to me of the increasing lack of attention we pay to the things that we do every day. How far does your mind have to be down the rabbit hole of to-do’s that you forget about the living, breathing human beings around you? How much could some small shift in attention and mindfulness affect our ability to remember what we’re doing while we’re doing it?
I’m not judging. I am as likely as anyone else to forget what I’m doing in the moment. I leave my keys behind, my grocery bags in the car about every third time I head to get food for the week, and I often get into another room and have to stop a beat to recall why the hell I’m there. All of those things point to me not being present, and generally all it takes is a thoughtful intention to be mindful of what I’m doing to bring me back.
I am reminded of something that I heard Dr. JoAnn Deak say once in a lecture she delivered. If a girl isn’t making eye contact with you, she isn’t processing what you’re saying. I wonder how often I don’t look up when my loved ones come into the room and start talking to me, my head buried in a book or staring at my computer screen. I wonder how that makes them feel, or if they are so used to people not making eye contact with them that they don’t think a thing of it. And I wonder how many nuances of conversation I am missing by not taking a nanosecond to be intentional about my attention. It is so easy to think that we are paying attention simply because we do something by rote (nod and murmur, “uh huh” at a break in someone’s sentence, buckle our child into their carseat and drive to work), but it takes more than that to truly be part of that action, and ironically, it doesn’t take much more time. It simply requires that we be mindful of what we’re doing at any given time, a task that is becoming increasingly challenging for all of us as we succumb to the rhetoric about ‘productivity.’ Personally, I’d rather see more people doing things with intentionality and purpose and attention than people doing more things on balance. A culture that requires a “Smart Clip” to remember its children are there isn’t one that I can be terribly proud of.
I agree 100% with Kari. The smart clip was created by Intel & within the last year, they had a child left in car incident in one of their parking lots. Makes me wonder if this led to them making this thing happen.
Oh, dear Lord, I had not heard of the Smart Clip. I so agree!
So true and well said. People rush through their lives in crazy distractedness. This "solution" is anything but.