The Ordinary Impact

Any time I go out in public I see people (adults and kids) focused on their smart phone screen. It could be at a restaurant or a store. It’s always interesting to see people sitting directly across from each other not connecting with each other because they are focused on a screen. (I’m sure it happens at home, too.) Digital connection is amazing. The internet’s theme song should be “It’s a small world,” and creating a small world has many perks. Those perks are so engaging that many people tend to disengage with the world around them. Spending time in Colorado, I haven’t seen as much “screen time”. People hang out in restaurants and lodges, taking in the sights and connecting with the people. Last night, I  saw two people staring at their phones, but then I heard their conversation. They were comparing the pictures they had taken during the day: discussing the lighting, angles, and their experiences throughout the day. All in all, people were disconnecting from technology (...

From 1994-1998,  Sprite  sales skyrocketed. This increase in sales coincided with a two-pronged decision in their marketing campaign. In 1994, Sprite ended their upbeat ad campaign “ I Like the Sprite in You ,” and they began their new ad campaign with the slogan “ Image is Nothing. Thirst is Everything.  Obey Your Thirst .” Recently Sprite has focused specifically on the “Obey Your Thirst” part of the slogan, in my opinion, because our culture is driven by image. In general, we are suffering through plague of unhappiness. We long to be happy. We play hide-and-seek with it, but it seems elusive to us. It seems deeply hidden and, at times, unattainable.  Shawn Achor  emphasizes in his books that happiness is a choice. We can choose it, yet all too often we grasp at it and come up empty. I think it stems from the fact that each of us - at our very core - need to be known and loved; however, in our image-driven, social media-focused culture we settle for bei...