{"id":25448,"date":"2024-05-08T09:00:43","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T16:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=25448"},"modified":"2024-05-03T09:52:41","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T16:52:41","slug":"not-the-last-word-connecting-by-disconnecting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2024\/05\/08\/not-the-last-word-connecting-by-disconnecting\/","title":{"rendered":"Not the Last Word<\/em>: Connecting by disconnecting"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently listened to a CBC program about our right to disconnect. Because of all the exciting technology available today, people are feeling more and more pressure to be plugged in to something all the time, whether it be scrolling through our phones, laptops, or Fitbits or giving commands to our houses and cars. There doesn\u2019t seem to be a moment in the day that isn\u2019t connected online somehow.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Not the Last Word<\/em> is a column appearing in every issue of Nexus<\/em> (photo by Emily Welch\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I remember a time when it wasn\u2019t like this, when telephone use was for home only, and if someone wasn\u2019t able to answer, you left a voicemail and assumed you\u2019d hear from that person at their convenience. Nowadays, the option to be unavailable isn\u2019t there; if a phone or text isn\u2019t answered right away, the assumption is either that you\u2019ve been ghosted or something terrible has happened. It\u2019s not a fair excuse anymore to tell people, \u201cI decided to take the night off and not answer my phone at all.\u201d It\u2019s also considered irresponsible for people to not answer work-related calls, texts, or emails if the work day is over.<\/p>\n

The amount of trolling and bullying online is also continuing to rise. When I check out chat forums, I\u2019m always kind of astounded at some of the cruelty that goes on between people. I don\u2019t understand what point there is to making another person feel small in order to get a quick shot of dopamine, yet it seems to be a really popular pastime. I notice when I\u2019m in any public place\u2014whether it be a coffeehouse, the bus, or the ferry to Vancouver\u2014that almost every single person is on their phone, with the exception of the very occasional book or magazine reader; I find those people super refreshing.<\/p>\n

So when do we have the right to shut everything down and disconnect for our own sanity? How much courage will it take to tell people in our lives (friends, family, even employers) that our communication is down for the night and they can wait until tomorrow to get through? I\u2019d love to take this challenge but I too am slightly terrified of what people will think, or what I\u2019ll miss. I do know, however, that if we keep adding more devices to our list of communication technologies, humans may give up speaking out loud at all, never mind taking time outside with only the sun and air to touch our senses.<\/p>\n

So, think about our right to disconnect. Maybe if we do, we can find new connection to the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently listened to a CBC program about our right to disconnect. Because of all the exciting technology available today, people are feeling more and more pressure to be plugged in to something all the time, whether it be scrolling through our phones, laptops, or Fitbits or giving commands to our houses and cars. There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24212,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,310],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-may-8-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25448"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25449,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25448\/revisions\/25449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}