The Role of Mobile Phones In Our Family

Our family time or bonding time at home is an essential part of building a good family relationship. We should spent it wisely for us to make our day useful.

At home, I cam say that most of us have no work during Saturdays and Sundays.

I spent the weekends with my whole family including my nieces and nephews by playing, watching movies and eating as a routine.

Weekends are reunion days for us eversince my mom passed away. It is our way of keeping ourselves away from loneliness. So the more, the better. The more, the louder we are.

After my nieces and nephews have taken their breakfast at their houses, they will go to our house and spent their time with us. Their houses are only near to us. Our bonding time is watching tv. We watched K-pop shows, concerts amd videos which was only watched by my niece before. But since all of us enjoyed their music, we began watching it, too. My younger brother was surprisingly addicted to K-pop girl group "Twice" which I never imagined.

We also watched movies from Netflix. I noticed that we all have that bonding whenever we watched together. We laughed and talked about the movie together. It is an effective way to strengthen the family.

The Loss of Communication in the Family

But after an hour watching movie, the kids and teenagers will focus and play more with their mobile phones. They played together as a team or sometimes they will play individually. I noticed that once we are using our own phones when browsing the internet or by using Facebook or YouTube, we seemed separated from one another. It seemed there is a wall to each of us.

Unlike before, weekends are considered family day. The day to go out on a date with family. But when the pandemic strikes, it is better to stay home. But instead of family bonding, each member is busy using their own phones. The other is busy with Facebook while others are using Youtube. Some are busy with playing games. Some rather stay in their own rooms using phones. Or if they will all be staying in the living room, it seemed like they don't know each other because they have their own stuffs to do.

Before, the family eats together but because of their phones, some skipped meals. The spirit of being family at home is no longer present. They are physically home but emotionally they are separated.

Almost everyone of us has gadgets. It is considered one of the basic needs of people. It is useful to communicate with people we cannot keep in touch with personally. Technologies are fast-pacing. We can now talked to our relatives abroad by phone or video calls anytime we are available.

Old Means of Communication

Unlike before, we can only keep in touch with our loved ones through snail mail or voice tape recording. I am familiar with it because my father used to work abroad for almost a long time. He worked mostly in Middle East countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and also in other parts like Cuba.

I akso remembered when we were still using the vintage type of landline where you will insert 3 piece of 25 centavos to the phone to dial a number and make calls. It was being installed in a sari-sari store when I was in elementary.

My father started working in other countries since 1980's. My mothers communixation with my father is by snail mail only which my father will receive only after 2 weeks of sending it and vice versa. So there is a big chance that whatever we wrote in the letter have changed in that period of waiting. We also sent voice recordings. My father can call us through landline only but seldom. This means that there was a very little means of communication before.

Advantages of Mobile Phones

Unlike now, there is a big difference. There are also benefits of using mobile phones.

We can easily talk to our loved ones even in the farthest places of the world. It seemed that our loved ones is just near us because of the modern texhnology. If we have internet or data, we can chat or talk to our loved ones abroad or far away by using our mobile phones.

By the use of our mobile phones, everything is possible.

We can still study even we are studying home through online classes. It is very useful in studies We can do research and we can have online study or meeting just by using it.

We can do online shoppings and online payments by using our mobile phones.

We can buy foods through delivery without the hassle of going outside.

We can pay our monthly bills amd process tramsactions easily.

My Final Say

Everyday and everything changes. Like what they say, change is the only permanent in the world.

Mobile phones are everywhere. We use it in our daily lives either in good or bad reasons. But when we are inside our house or with our family, let us try not to use it but rather spent our time with our family.

Have a nice day and happy reading!!