COVID-19 emergency: an opportunity

Multi-screening is all the rage. Yet, Stanford University has found that while it presents us with more information, it reduces our ability to decide which data is relevant to the question at hand.

Constant use of social media reveals how many interesting individuals we could know but don't. This leaves many of us with uncomfortable feeling that we're somehow falling short.

These effects are not uniquely internet-related. The same outcomes can be seen when we expose ourselves to too many stimuli in any form - online or offline.

Facing an abundance of information and contacts, in real-time and in the cybersphere, we curiously still find ourselves experiencing FOMO, the infamous fear of missing out. It's a weird but very real form of anxiety.

Meanwhile, our general rush to pursue financial security and often idealised lifestyle goals can lead us to "desacrilise" life. We lose our sense of being "set apart", which is the true meaning of "sacred".

I've been asked several times over the past few years, on programmes like BBC Breakfast, whether we should allow all-hours shopping across the Christmas period.

The fact is that setting aside certain days for reflection helps not only individuals but society as a whole. It allows us to assimilate everything that's going on in our individual lives, our relationships and our wider world.

Psychologists talk about the fact that our thinking becomes eve more shallow if we're constantly switched on and rushing about. There are clear signs that stress in the workplace is increasing today, partly because people can't switch off out of hours.

Hence the moves by some of Europe's largest companies to switch off individual work-based email accounts when their people leave the office each day. Work-related stress is costing companies big money through lost productivity.

Yet the true cost of over-stretched lives, in terms of emotions, mental health, families and friendships, will never be reflected in mere monetary metrics.

COVID-19 is most definitely not our friend. Yet neither is paralysing panic.

Moreover, we can choose to see a degree of self-isolation as an opportunity to pull back from constant over-stimulation and stress.

Hopefully, a cure for COVID-19 will soon be found and it will not have time to mutant further. In the meantime, let's ensure that our precious lives do not pass by unexamined.