Have you read the article “Digital Detachment and Personal Revelation” by Elder Scott D. Whiting in the March Ensign? Elder Whiting says that the need to constantly be attached to our digital devices hinders us from building a relationship with our Heavenly Father.

He mentions that technological advancements can be both good and bad. Modern technology, when purely and judiciously used, can help us hasten the work of the Lord and spread the gospel. But an overreliance on technology can be a problem. “Being constantly ‘plugged in’ can drown out the quiet whisperings and subtle impressions of the Holy Spirit, breaking our personal connection with God and making it difficult, if not impossible, to receive personal revelation.”

Later in the article, he said “While modern technological advancements can enhance the work of the Lord and bless us and our families, we must be careful not to fall victim to their destructive side. We must not only avoid the base and degrading content some sources contain, but we must also recognize when electronic distractions keep us from quieter, more significant uses of our time. We must guard against becoming so attached to digital devices that we become detached from God.”

What suggestions do you have for using technology wisely? One family I know decided that their children were spending too much time texting–even staying up late at night sending thousands of text messages. So the family decided that the cell phones would go on the kitchen counter at 9:00pm each night.

What family rules have you instituted that help?

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Thinking about buying an e-reader device? Which one should you buy? Kindle? Sony Reader? Or do you wait and get Apple’s new iPad? I’ve just spent 3 days attending sessions at the Publishing Business Conference in New York City about e-readers and the future of publishing. (See my posts about the current status and the future of the publishing industry.)

Modern e-readers provide a very nice experience in reading. E-paper devices are not backlit like a computer screens, so they are very easy on the eyes. It’s very similar to reading ink on paper. They are slim and lightweight and allow you to sit back and enjoy reading. And you can’t beat the average price of about $9 per book.

E-readers are still a bit clumsy for reading magazines, but they work great for reading text-based books. (It’ll only be a few years until larger, color, foldable e-paper readers will be available for a great magazine experience.)

So, back to the original question, which device should you buy?

• Kindle (Amazon): Is the most popular reader. It has lots of momentum, but you are limited to Kindle’s proprietary content format. (Although there are free tools that can convert standard ePub files to Kindle-compatible files.)
• Librie and Reader (Sony): I like my Sony Reader. It’s lightweight, easy to use, and easy to read. Books are available from the Sony library and other sources (see overdrive.com), since this reader accepts files in the standard ePub format, as well as PFD, RTF, Word documents, text documents, and Sony’s own .lrf, and .lrx formats.
• The iPad was introduced recently by Steve Jobs and is getting a lot of hype. It’s not yet available in the market. The iPad has a multi-touch color display, which will open great opportunities, especially for magazines. Hoever, the iPad has a backlit computer screen, not e-paper technology. Also, it will have slow connectivity until 4G networks are more broadly available.  If you’re the type to buy the latest, greatest Apple product, this is definitely for you (if you have $499). But if that’s not you, it’s probably not worth buying.
• Finally, you may want to consider the PocketBook , which has 75-80% of the market share in Europe and is just starting in the USA. It is an open reader that reads all e-book formats, except Kindle. It holds 1,500 books, plus external memory available up to 32 G. It supports all languages (you can add your own fonts), has 6 font sizes, allows you to create your own folders and themes, and allows firmware upgrades. (This is important because the technology is changing so quickly.) You can also download games and new models have text to speech and handwriting to text functions.

If you’re not willing to pay a few hundred dollars to get an e-reader today, don’t write off the idea completely. In 3-5 years, the devices will come down in price to $100 or even $50. The devices will also become lighter, have better color, and roll up or fold up to fit in your shirt pocket.

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This your invitation to the first ever LDSTech Developers Conference conveniently scheduled for the Thursday and Friday before general conference (April 1–2). It’s an opportunity to come to Church headquarters and learn about the tools and services available and how to get started on projects that interest you and that will benefit members of the Church around the world.  Seating is limited so register today!

Who Should Attend

This conference is for those who want to use their talents to help the Church develop solutions that have the potential to benefit the whole Church membership and more. Those interested in volunteering their talents should register. Talents you can channel into projects include, but are not limited to, software development, project management, Web design, quality assurance, security, and localization.

Event Details

The conference will be held at the Riverton Office Building in Riverton, Utah, on April 1–2. You will learn about the tools and services available, how to join a team, and ways to get working as quickly as possible.

There is no charge for this event. However, seating is limited and those interested should register as early as possible.

About the Venue

The Riverton Office Building is the Church’s new building that houses the headquarters of the Information and Communications Systems Department. It is located at 3740 West Market Drive, Riverton, Utah 84065.

 Visit http://tech.lds.org/devconf2010 to learn more and to register.

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The Church has created a widget to donate to the Haiti earthquake relief. To post this on your blog or Web site, click the Share tab on the widget, then click one of the icons, or copy the embed code to your site. Please help spread this widget to increase donations for this worthy cause.

I’ve blogged before about various widgets created by the Church that you can embed in your blog or Web site. For example, there is a widget that displays headlines from the Church Newsroom and a widget that streams music from the Mormon Channel.

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Using cell phones during class

One-fourth of teens’ text messages are sent during class, according to a new survey. The poll found that teens send 440 text messages a week on average — 110 of them during class. That works out to more than 3 texts per class period.

This is in spite of widespread classroom bans on mobile phones at school. Only 23% of parents whose children have cellphones think they are using them at school; 65% of students say they do.

Using cell phones to cheat on tests

A significant number of teens also have stored information on a cell phone to look at during a test or have texted friends about answers.

Even more disturbing is that only about half of teens say that this is a “serious offense.” Could it be that students have developed different personal standards about handwritten information vs. material stored on cellphones? That may be a good topic to bring up with your children in a discussion about honesty.

Using cell phones while driving

About one third of teens aged 16-17 who have cellphones say they have texted while behind the wheel.

Focus groups reveal that while many teens think it is unsafe and say they wouldn’t do it, others don’t believe it is dangerous. To avoid danger, some say they would have a passenger text for them, wait until they stopped at a light to text, or hold the phone up high while texting so they could keep their eyes on the road. This is probably another good topic to talk about with your teens.

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Most young people have a cell phone and an iPod and nearly one third own a laptop computer. And a recent survey shows that the more media kids use, the less happy they tend to be.

An article in USA Today titled “Kids less happy as they’re more plugged into TV, music, Web?“ reports that heavy media users (more than 16 hours of media content in a typical day) are more likely to have bad grades, more likely to be “often sad or unhappy,” less likely to get along well with their parents, and twice as likely to “get into trouble a lot.”

A key question still unanswered is whether consuming a lot of media makes children’s lives more troubled, or whether troubled kids simply consume more media.

Consider the following facts:

• Heavy media users (more than 16 hours/day) actually have the same or slightly more friends than lighter media users. With all this easily-accessible media, kids can retreat to their own little media world. However, my guess is that today is not much different than a decade ago when kids could also retreat into their bedrooms to listen to music. Today, many report that Facebook and cell phones make it easier to make and stay connected with friends.
• Heavy media users get about 15 minutes more exercise a day than lighter media users.

Maybe the take-away is that media use in and of itself is not inherently bad or good. It’s all about balancing face-to-face communication with relationships with a computer screen or text messages.

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Yesterday, USA Today published an article titled “Kids’ electronic media use jumps to 53 hours a week.” In it, they reported that kids spend more than 53 hours a week with electronic media (cellphones, iPods, video games and computers)–that’s 7.5 hours/day! What do they do with electronic media? They listen to music, watch TV and movies, play video games, and hang out online. And they’re often doing 2 or more of these at the same time.

Interesting facts:

• African-American and Hispanic kids spend nearly one-third more time each day with electronics than white kids.
• Cellphone ownership has increased sharply since 2004, from 39% to 66%.
• Ownership of iPods has jumped even more since 2004, from 18% to 76%.
• 20% of kids’ media comes via mobile devices–most of which have no filtering capabilities.

And the more time kids spend with electronic media, the less face time they have with their parents and siblings. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s article “Does Electronic Media Make Kids Happy?”

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If you’re going to be in the DC area this Christmas or have friends who will be, check out the Festival of Lights. Click on one of the share buttons on the web page to invite your friends or link to it from your blogs!

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Want to store and retrieve great quotes you have? Want to find other great quotes?

A few years ago, Connor Boyack developed the website quoty.org to be able to save and tag quotes he enjoyed. You can create your own account and search through everyone else’s tags to find other quotes that may interest you.

It’s taxonomy-based, so, as an example, you can go to http://www.quoty.org/tag/faith to see quotes about faith or http://www.quoty.org/tag/prophet to see quotes about prophets. You can also use the search page to look for keywords or portions of a quote. It’s been up for a few years so it has nearly 5,000 quotes loaded up now.

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An article in the Daily Herald talks about the tweets (posts on Twitter) that were “coming fast and furious” during the recent LDS general conference.

“Even as thousands of members stuffed the LDS conference center in Salt Lake City and hundreds of thousands more watched the conference broadcast, other members were pushing the event to the forefront of social media. The search term “#ldsconf” remained among the most popular on Twitter over the weekend. Tweets flooded in, for example, when Monson spoke of the need for service.”

“They ranged from the need for the warm fuzzy jar to jabs at government. But drawing the most attention on Sunday was Elder Jeffery R. Holland, who used the majority of his time to give a direct and emotional testimony about the veracity of the church’s Book of Mormon…. The talk was followed by thousands of tweets about how powerful it was. ‘If you do anything else, watch Holland,” wrote one person.’

“But even as the church’s members streamed, tweeted, IM’d, listened and watched conference on every piece of media at their disposal, Elder Russell M. Nelson said the best kind of communication doesn’t come with a cost.

“‘Even more amazing that modern technology is our opportunity to access information directly from heaven, without hardware, software or monthly service fees,’ he said.”

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