So much of today’s society involves the general populace dedicating themselves to the screens. With so many devices always at their reach, there is a love-hate relationship with screen time, especially among the autistic community where screens are often used to stimulate ourselves.

Much of today’s population does not know how to operate without some sort of device within their household. I have had access to computers over 25 years ago and have had internet for about that long when broadband was a rarity for a town my size, so I have been exposed from about the time I was bestowed with my diagnosis with the electric glow in my living room.

There are so many benefits to having electronics at our disposal. Along with major advancements in technology, I am doing so in this very blog post. I am getting my story just like many others on the planet about a wide array of topics at instant speed at one’s fingertips or scroll, as long as there is a viable connection, our stimulatory needs are sent to our pleasure centers and can get what we need, be entertained or anything of the such.

I have also been a witness and at times have early on have lashed out when such connections have glitches and outages. I have seen others that have diagnoses similar to me literally come beside themselves because they cannot be stimulated by the technology we have available today. 

Even in my Sunday services, we rely on technology to know the ebb and flow of the service and what to expect, what to sing, what to say, etc. I remember a Sunday a few weeks ago when there were technical difficulties for a part of the service and everyone was struggling to get in the old fashioned hymnals and Bibles that we once had to do in a place I thought I would never see such technological advances in my lifetime. Essentially, it is what makes or breaks a religious community and I have seen it happen a few times in my local faith community.

Likewise it can be a struggle as I began earlier this year when I experienced a 14-hour power outage through the spring shoulder weather season. All you could do was go to bed and wake the next morning and go from there. It has given the drive along with such from the advocacy groups in my Commonwealth to dedicate some time sharing knowledge on emergency preparedness, tuned to the needs of the autistic community. This has grown from me seeing the challenges in my fellow autistic individuals when they are deprived of the basic necessities that are taken too often for granted, including technological devices and electricity and elements to provide them information and data.

It is within that and other factors that I had to accept that in fact I was being too overstimulated and as such needed to find a healthy balance. Even many times in the workplace and other elements of involvement we are asked to utilize such devices in order to aid us in completing our work, something 30 years ago was nothing but a pipe dream or was at a very small capability.

It is the fact that you just have to make time to find that healthy balance of dedicating time to recharge. Old fashioned books,cleaning rooms, doing laundry (as boring as that may be) can be some diversions to balancing that screen time. Some outdoor activities could also include good old fashioned pool sitting, visiting a local park or pool or just taking a stroll around the block. Any movement is a good movement. 

In essence, we must balance ourselves so that we do not become addicted to technology as we are far too reliant on things than we once were 30 years ago, therefore it must have a healthy balance of where that stands.