EDITORIAL: Is it time to shut off electronic devices? : JUNE

There’s just too much information being blasted at you endlessly.

Maybe it’s time to shut off all our electronic devices.

The news is endless sensationalism: crime, war, violence, everywhere and endlessly. Not only is it fatiguing and very tiring but it also desensitizes everyone, so we are shocked less and less by what used to astonish and stun us before. We’re tiring of things which should find alienating and abhorrent. Hear about Gaza, over and over and over, and the ears shut it off. Hear story after story after story of violent crime and soon you hear nothing at all.

Maybe it’s time to shut off all our electronic devices. Read a good book. Read a funny story. Go for a walk. Try a new recipe. Phone a friend to yack about the weather. Get away from all this media trash. Take a break.

If you can’t resist TV, select comedies, select sports, select nature documentaries, select a cooking show. Find something that will distract you from the ‘real world’ that seems to be an endless sinking into a quagmire of violence, fake news and sensationalism.

If you have to be news-connected, read a newspaper where you are in control. You can read what you choose, at a pace you like, slowly savouring each word, appreciating the quality of the writing or critiquing it. But you are the information manager. Whereas with TV or the Internet, you are not the manager. The information is coming at you the way Zuckerberg or Musk wants it to. And that information is coming at you so fast, you have no real time to evaluate it, give it consideration, to gauge its validity and actuality.

So get away from the sensational buzz of electronic devices and get back into your own life, your family, your friends. It’s a much better social circle to be in. Enjoy it fully.

For the sake of brevity and productivity, may I suggest you distill your desktop or home screen apps/Internet connections to just: