Sedaris

"It’s a Fitbit. You sync it with your computer, and it tracks your physical activity.”

It was the last answer I expected from a description of a wristwatch. Being a Luddite myself, I first learned about Fitbit from David Sedaris’s essay Stepping Out.

That gizmo sounds like our smartphone pedometer app that tracks walking, plus a push notification after certain milestones.

As David Sedaris points out, many people, and I happily include myself among them, like the push signal or tingle because it feels so good, not just as a sensation but also as a mark of accomplishment.

Sedaris is so obsessed with getting the e-batch that he hits thirty-five thousand steps a day. Then another e-batch for forty thousand. And forty-five thousand. Next, sixty thousand. And on and on.

The push notification can be addictive. You keep returning to the gadget, the way Ebenezer Scrooge would have done if there were electronic bank account in 1843. I can tell from my personal experience with the digital running app.

The prime example, of course, comes from Sedaris who was once devastated when his Fitbit died. He walked twenty-five miles but found that meaningless without the steps being counted and registered. Is this behaviour logical? No. Does it make sense if he ordered an immediate replacement? No. Did he experience withdrawal symptoms while waiting for the express delivery? Yes. Should he tear open the box as soon as he received his new Fitbit and went out racing, with his new Fitbit strapped on, to make up for lost time? Absolutely.

Unplugged

If you can't list your dinner table a tech-free zone without buzzing cell phones in this digital era, try your luck on the bike trail with your kid.

This is exactly what I did last weekend after reading Jonathan McKee's 52 Ways to Connect with Your Smartphone Obsessed Kid. I didn't ride a tandem bike with my daughter; we rode our own bikes, with only short distance between us, and ventured out on long stretches of road.

No matter how tech sucks us in, hands occupied with the bike handles are too busy to pick up a smartphone. Simply put: cycling helps the two of us bond.

I encourage you - no, I flat-out dare you - to read McKee's book and then you will - like me - realize that it's we parents who should get unplugged.

If I am being completely honest, I'd have to say that I'm addicted to my smartphone way more than my daughter. Let's face it: we all are. Our kids learn to stare at their phones because they are learning from us.  

Duh.

Apple

Choosing the right smartphone has never been difficult. Picking the right age for a child to own one is.

We all agree that there has been a mass exodus of children from outdoor free play to the glowing screens of smartphones or tablets. The American Academy of Pediatrics has for years urged parents to limit tech time for young children, simply because unstructured, unplugged play is the best way for them to think creatively, to problem solve, to develop communication and reasoning skills.

In no way do I advocate giving our innocent children a smartphone. That electronic gadget sounds like a forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, and it is. And I have had a sneaking suspicion that my daughter will ask for her Apple sooner or later.

Earlier last week, the forecast came true. Our daughter badgered us to give her a personal telephone, two months shy of her ninth birthday. My heart sank. I took a deep breath, and my wife hers. We then talked over this question during dinner time and asked Jasmine for her two cents. "How's that going to work out for you?"

We agreed that our daughter can be trusted to make good use of her smartphone even before the end of our dinner. The remaining questions for me are the know-how of reconfiguring our old iPhone 6 and whereabouts to buy a SIM card. Next, to play safe, I headed to public library and borrowed two books on helping kids to navigate the digital age. These are what I need - and want - for peace of mind after we nodded in agreement to our daughter's request.

It may have been too early to conclude, but she didn't disappoint us.

Obama

Raise your hand if you have ever felt offended when your mail goes unanswered. Keep your hand in the air if you have not given a hoot to answer mails.

Time and again, I'd fallen into the same trap of "read and no reply." Most of us are not born with willingness to reply mail; I am no exception. And it's even worse when there's page after page after page of mails pouring in.

It surprised the heck out of me when I heard that Barack Obama made a daily effort to read and reply ten letters at the White House. An examplar of passion and respect. Imagine a country's leader who received ten thousand letters from ordinary citizens, coming up with a deliberate practice of reading ten letters before going to bed. He answered some by hand and wrote notes on others for the correspondence team to answer, and on some he scribbled, "SAVE." I reflected on my mistakes when a good friend of mine bought me the inspiring book To Obama by Jeanne Marie Laska. I was inspired, amazed, and embarrassed all at once.

How can I leave mails unanswered when my mailbox size is nothing compared to Obama's? That admitted, I must further confess the shame I feel when caught skipping a mail - oh, say, unseen - to say nothing of reply.

I told myself I should follow the example of Obama, or at least I should be trying to.

Strava

Highly committed runners have much higher levels of narcissism than less committed ones. That's what I learned from Jason Karp who wrote The Inner Runner. He is right that running can sometimes be an experience of egoism.

Am I narcissistic? Well, I don't know. It's hard to say but there's a good chance that I am.

If there is one thing I know about my addiction with runner's narcissism more than a VO2 max number, it is that I joined Strava soon after my friend's recommendation and run with this digital app eagerly. Why am I drawn to this new toy? Most runners would agree with me that running lifts our spirits. Even more so, when we can upload a run on social media, being recognized by dopamine rush of receiving "likes."

Hold your horses - there is a lot more. Instead of "like" (as what you find in Facebook), Strava's currency of approval is called "kudo" - a surefire way to give us feelings of grandiosity. Not only does running give pleasure in the moment but also reward after an upload, which down the road will itself lead to enviable kudos.

Miles after miles, kudos after kudos, we all narcissists should love it. At least to me.

Bryson

I can't imagine an author who writes better memoir than Bill Bryson.

I learnt so many and laughed so much when I read his story of being a newspaper boy at the age of eleven. That's tough, think about it, to deliver the afternoon papers six days a week, and then get up on Sundays before dawn and deliver the Sunday papers too. The reason, Bill Bryson writes, is to allow the regular morning paperboys enjoy a day off each week.

All this was fine - or at least fine enough - so long as Bill Bryson didn't mix up the route. Anyway, that isn't the worst. Paperboys were supposed to collect the subscription money. That, by itself, wasn't too risky when they were delivering papers to rich people. The real danger came from thousands of dogs in 1950s, inhabiting every property - big dogs, grumpy dogs, stupid dogs, tiny nippy irritating little dogs, dogs that wanted to smell you, dogs that barked at everything that moved. And then there was Dewey, a black Labrador which eventually bit him hard. That was a big bite that never earned Bill Bryson an apology. To that end, he decided to stick a secret booger in that family's paper every day.

Whatever topic Bryson writes, he recounts his story in such a funny and detailed manner that is going to give you behind-the-scenes fact of a crazy kid. And he has a perfect memory, say, to recollect how his father spent at least thirty minutes to prepare the legendary snacks at night. That means Ritz crackers, a large jar of mustard, wheat germ, radishes, ten Hydrox cookies, an enormous bowl of chocolate ice cream, several slices of luncheon meat, freshly washed lettuce, Cheez Whiz, peanut butter, peanut brittle, a hard-boiled egg or two, a small bowl of nuts, watermelon in season, possibly a banana. The list is comprehensive. It really is.

Why Bryson can remember so many details is a bit of puzzle. I now know that I'd better jot down everything in case I'm going to follow the footsteps of Bill Bryson. And so here it goes - for the ingredients my daughter and her buddy used for homemade slime today - baking soda, school glue, cornstarch, contact lens solution, watercolour paint.

Thief

Every once in a while, I borrowed books with not-so-childish topics and read together with my daughter. Bereavement, refugees, divorce, whatever.

I know: that makes me sound like such a defensive pessimist. Or Charlie Brown. But hear me out.

The truth is, there are good lessons to learn from those tender story books written for children. My pick tonight is a story of daddy struggling with depression: The Colour Thief. One day, a thief stole all colours away. One by one, the colours were gone: the sky turned grey, the clouds frowned, the sun was sulking, or so it seemed. And on that sobering note, if the dad went out, the lamp posts would laugh at him or the streets would call him names.

Page by page, we saw the colours disappearing into dark shadows. An abyss. We got chance to talk about how depression can change us, and how we can change the depression. Fortunately, we're learning the life lessons from a picture book, and not from our real life.