The fact that the digital readout on my car tells me that it is a due a service and that it needs to be looked at because something is very wrong does not provide comfort, just a nagging concern that it might break down soon, but how soon? On my way to work I left a message on my wife’s mobile phone, ‘it’s only me, just calling to say on my way to work’.  She didn’t answer the phone, she’s out riding the horse, has something happened? Mid conversation with a work colleague, my phone’s just pinged, I must check it, it’s only my mate asking me out for a drink… ‘Nice one, next Thursday?’… What was that you were saying Susie?  It’s not that the conversation is unimportant it’s just that I might miss something important on the phone.  Checking emails, that email I sent an hour ago still hasn’t been responded to… back to Susie.

An hour later… must check my emails.  What’s on Facebook, another notification has come through… must respond … ‘like’, there done.  Better check I haven’t missed anything.  Ebay… I’m still the highest bidder… should I increase my bid… just in case, Ebay says it would be a good idea.  Google the item… what’s it worth… back to Ebay… Increase bid.  Must check it again soon.  Text from wife, all is good.  Check emails… check phone … check Ebay… Check Facebook… all quiet, are they working..? Is it a network problem?  Thank goodness I haven’t got a Twitter account to worry about. Now I have to write a blog entry… what to write about, will anyone read it let alone like it? Off to my seminar, I wonder if the laptop will work, will it connect to that new screen and stay connected, last week it kept disconnecting… will the technology work… busy, worry…

Before the days of connectivity and the great digital advancement, I didn’t worry about such things.  But then I wouldn’t have phoned my wife on the way to work, in fact I wouldn’t have spoken to or heard from her for the whole day until I got home.  I wouldn’t be worrying about the car because it would either be working or have broken down.  Any correspondence I received would be in my in tray on a desk and would be dealt with and put into an out tray, the pending tray, or the bin.  The pending tray was usually just waiting for the bin. Nothing to ping and rudely distract me from my conversation with a colleague. No need to worry about whether I was the highest bidder, I would be at the auction bidding, it would be happening there and then.  I wouldn’t have been connected to a world of ‘friends’ producing meaningless drivel about where they were having their cup of coffee or the fact they liked some article in a paper about mass rape or murder.  As for the laptop and the screen, paper never let me down.

We live in a digital age and everything is at your fingertips and it’s available right now.  But what does that do?  It may give you an edge in some respects but it also makes you edgy.  I look around and see and hear about so many people suffering from anxiety, old and young alike. Perhaps the cause is not technology alone but it certainly doesn’t help.  Maybe I worry too much, maybe I’m just becoming anxious about being anxious.