Day 7 - 113 -- Flickering Screen

Do feel like you are spending entirely too much time with e-devices? While being isolated, we are working on devices and laptops from home more than usual -- meeting online for work and personal socializing, live streaming movies, stage and screen musical and live short or longer events featuring musical artists. So -- we are into the screens for work, play and social connections. This means we are spending being sedentary. Perhaps we need to take a break to be more physically active -- do stairs at home, yoga or tai chi, or spend time in the yard or walk around the block. The screen devices even have activity classes <smile>.

So, in many ways, supports for daily life have become focused on flickering screens. I've spent much of my career, suggesting that we spend less time in front of these glowing lights. However, given the need for contact when living in isolation, technology now plays a major role in each day. We still need to use it wisely -- as stated by Edward R. Murrow (1958), "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; and, yes even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it's nothing but lights and wires in a box." Granted, he said this in 1958 in relation to television, but I believe it fits well with current electronic devices. So -- take some time to disconnect from them for a bit during the day. Get in touch with you or those isolating with you. Even companion animals will be happy to see you give them some attention and not just read and speak to a screen <smile>.

The song for today became something different than my first thought of one critical of mass media use. Instead, I realized that right now, while we still need to practice sensible use, we really do need to be with screens more than I would usually recommend. And, no, I don't think this only to justify my own immersion online over the past 38 days. <smile>  Instead, as a health professional and media content analyst, I find a need to support our current uptick in time spent 'online'. I have been part of several wonderful online communities in the past 25 years, so I do see where that social support we all need to be part of rests within the cyber-world. Without it, we'd all be in far scarier places in our minds these days. So -- reach out, but take time to look up from the screen, too <smile>. The selection for the day is by a singer-songwriter who lives about an hour from here in a gorgeous part of Cape Breton Island. It is from her debut solo album, with her previous albums being as a member of a family group. It states well what online connections during isolation can do for us and in turn, what we can do for those around us. Enjoy!

I got your back -- Heather Rankin