My e-mail inbox is pushing me to the brink of despair.
‘Brushing your teeth like this could cause memory loss.’ ‘What’s hiding in your gut.’ ‘Never strain while pooping.’
Every minute, a new warning pops up, threatening me with extinction. Who knew that just the simple act of sitting on the loo was a death trap? Yep, ‘you can just pass out and die on the toilet from straining too hard while pooping.’
So, you can banish all those intrusive thoughts about speeding cars and planes dropping from the sky, because the Grim Reaper is lurking just steps away in your bathroom.
The straining can cause an aneurysm (‘when blood vessels pop in your brain’ Wellness Digest 4U helpfully tells me) and the blood flow ‘can knock plaque free in veins leading to heart attack or stroke.’
You cannot Google anything these days without dozens of algorithms picking up on every aspect of your life, from health, to dating, to death. You can wake up fresh as a daisy, check your e-mails while still in bed, and lose the will to get out of it.
I am seriously suffering from information overload. If I go to the toilet, I return to find 20 more messages in my inbox (even without spending any extra time straining). No matter how many I delete or how many I block, there they come again, a frogspawn of syllables hatching into life if I so much as turn my back for a minute.
The health ones are invariably doom and gloom; many are clickbait, where you have to scroll through 20 pages just to discover the wonder food you’ve been told about at the start of the article that is the reason why the Japanese are so healthy. I thought I’d got the better of them on that, when I just Googled it to save myself time. Now, I know more about the Japanese respiratory system than I ever thought I would need to.
It’s the same if you Google anything about men and dating. ‘Men’ alone sends a plethora of messages to me about erectile dysfunction and how to cure it (it’s not with the Japanese superfood, by the way). I’m 67. I can count on one hand the number of penises I’ve seen since I hit 50, dysfunctional or otherwise. Why do I need to know this stuff? Send it to the flaccid guys; I have enough trouble keeping myself and my mini hole healthy (and here’s another warning: do NOT Google vaginal dryness. You’ll be flooded with a reservoir of potions and gels that you won’t be able to afford).
Dating opens a whole other set of floodgates. ‘Bill the fireman is just down the road and is dying to meet you.’
I never asked for a man. I’m writing a book that requires certain research, but oh no, the algorithm has picked up that I’m some desperate aging pensioner whose dryness can be cured with a few spurts from Bill the fireman’s hose.
Far from my being led into a realm of optimism and the thought of finding a decent man, I am thrown into the depths of despair by such messages.
A fireman? Yes, Bill might look very handsome in his pic today, but what if is called out tomorrow, tries to rescue a cat from a tree and falls and breaks his neck? I’m just not strong enough to be pushing a wheelchair around for however many years I have left.
What if Bill attends a house fire and comes out horribly scarred for life? Would I be spending my remaining days administering Vaseline and bandages, unable to recognise the man I fell in love with?
I’m exhausted already. So much so, I’m going to write to Bill and tell him I want a divorce.
There is much I love about technology, and for me, who loves to travel, it has been lifechanging in terms of being able to work remotely. But on the downside, I genuinely feel wiped out with the inescapability of the torrent of information being pounded at me on a minute-by-minute basis. Yes, I could turn off my computer, but it is my lifeline for work. I need to be in touch with the world I write about; I just wish I could pick and choose what’s necessary without having to spend 50% of my day hitting the delete button.
When did it all start? When I was beginning my career as a journalist in the Eighties, I remember someone asking me for my e-mail address. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I said. ‘That’ll never catch on.’
Today, I have two phones, two iPads, three laptops and two desktop computers. I get on a plane for a long-haul flight and say: ‘Whadderyermean the WiFi’s not working? What sort of a third world aircraft is this?’
The world is not going backwards. It never will, and no amount of our screaming about Ryanair dispensing with paper boarding cards is going to change that. Nor will it change our having to use barcode self-service checkouts in supermarkets (though I find crying ‘I’m half blind, please help me’ sends someone scurrying to my side).
But there is no doubt that technological advances have brought many disadvantages. We hear about cyber bullying and the stresses of social networking, and they create very real problems, especially for young people.
For me, though, it is the stress of information overload I find increasingly difficult to handle. Some of it is interesting and useful, but I am spending way too much time reading about and checking things out that really should not be my concern. Why? Simply because it’s there. In my inbox.
I spend a minimum of 14 hours a day at my computer. I write on it, watch TV on it, Facetime friends etc. etc. But I’m consuming stuff. So much stuff. And mostly all irrelevant.
Sitting on the loo is the only respite I get. And if I expire there, so be it.
Life’s poop – and then you die.
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