Breaking the Cell Phone and PDA Addiction

Rob Naddelman: Through a Parent’s Eyes

I don’t know how many times I have heard the following words come out of my wife’s mouth, “would you please put your BlackBerry down!” She has a high tolerance for the use of my PDA but when it gets excessive I am sure to hear that familiar plea until I relent and put it down or turn it off.

If you take a moment to step back and be objective, our society has become obsessively distracted all the time. Just walk down the street of a major city and I bet it is hard to find a person that is not listening to an ipod, talking on their mobile phone, or frantically checking their PDA for text messages, emails, stock quotes, news updates, or sports scores.

In the effort to become more connected with the outside world we have become too insular and “checked out” from our families, friends, and colleagues as it relates to face to face communication. Think about it. How hard is it for you as a parent to really focus on a conversation with your spouse, children, or colleagues and not give into the urge to send a text message or email, check something on line, or talk on the phone? PDAs and cell phones have probably done more to regress our society from an emotional point of view than anything I can remember in the past 20 years.

I can remember back when we started Baseball Factory almost 15 years ago, the only way to communicate with colleagues and partners was through a good old fashioned land line phone. There were no mobile phones, no email accounts, and no internet. Somehow we still got things done and maybe we even had a little better balance outside the office.

Take some time and do an inventory of how much time you spend wasting on your mobile phone or PDA when you could be engaging with your kids, spouse, or friends. Are your high school children mimicking your phone behavior by sending endless text messages? Does that behavior bother you as a parent? How do you think your children feel when they see you doing the same thing with your PDA? Before you reach to answer an email, think twice about whether the issue is really that important or if it can wait. How much more valuable would be it to spend that time engaging and being “present” with the ones you love?

This is probably the biggest thing I need to work on in my personal life. I want to be accessible to our employees, clients, and partners via my BlackBerry, but when do I overdo it to a fault?

As parents, try hard to create a better balance and kick some of your cell phone or PDA addiction. I am sure it will pay emotional dividends for your family.

Rob Naddelman is the President of Baseball Factory. Naddelman is a former two-time All Ivy League Third Baseman at the University of Pennsylvania, where he competed in a College World Series Regional. He has served as the President of Baseball Factory for the past 13 years, and also is the Executive Director of Baseball Factory's charitable arm The B.A.S.E. - H.I.T. Foundation. Naddelman and Steve Sclafani (CEO) have been featured in Business Week and CNN for their work in building Baseball Factory into the nation's leader in player development and college placement.