by Ben Johnson (bio)
My wife is the stake primary president and one of her duties is to train and support the ward primary presidents. During one such training one of the ward PP's mentioned that she was having trouble keeping the kids engaged during sharing time and during class because of, you guessed it, electronic devices.
I won't go into the details as to why electronic devices are such a problem in primary because you surely already know the reason: the kids are just like the adults! How many of you, like me, have checked sports scores during a lesson, or sent an email during sacrament? How many of you, like me, have decided that 'Kindle-ing' WVS's disquisitions on priesthood are more interesting than the testimonies on fast Sunday? While our electronic devices are very handy, they can be very distracting.
I'd like to put a question to the group: what would the consequences be if our ward primary banned electronic devices? Would the kids be somehow deprived? If so, how? Now let's take it a step further. Imagine that this Sunday your bishop reads a letter from the First Presidency, the gist of which is you are discouraged from bringing your electronic devices to church. Basically, stick with the old leather and paper. What are the repercussions, if any? Is the net effect good or bad?
While I love my phone and Kindle and would probably cease to function without them, I can't help but wonder if leaving them home on Sunday wouldn't be better for me. Granted, this is more a problem with me than the electronics, but I'd love to hear some different perspectives on this.
Electronics on Sunday: blessing or curse? I would appreciate any thoughts the MMM community has.
