March 2, 2021

Addiction, is it an illness or an affliction? There are all kinds of addictions that people can suffer from. Some are innocent; some seem like no big deal, most forms of addiction cause problems and pain. The worst of addictions cause death.

I have some experience with addiction. I would admit that I am addicted to my phone and caught up in many forms of technology. I struggle to battle my addiction to the internet. I fight a daily battle against cravings for food like chocolate and salty snacks. I am not always winning those battles of willpower.

My battle is nothing compared to the 165 poor souls that died from overdoses in January. They just announced the record toll in BC for the start of the year, this follows the increase in overdoses in 2020. In the shadow of these sad numbers, we continue to shelter from the viral storm of Covid19.

And people rail on facebook and blame these deaths on the restrictions in place because of our microscopic foe. Is there a connection?

Are our addictions somehow getting worse because we have nothing else to do? My daughter certainly has become addicted to her device. Today’s youth is caught in a trap. They are told to stay away from each other told to distance.  

So what else is left but Tiktok and snapchat? When I was my kid’s age I had my Mattel hockey and footbal. I could only watch a flashing light cross a screen for so long before it was time to go outside and find a friend.

Now they have the technology and the vast knowledge at their fingertips They can access anything they want with the push of a few buttons. These new devices designed to addict people have been put into the hands of our youth. Before covid at least they could still connect with each other through sports and dance.

Then along came coronavirus.

My beautiful kid shelters in her room gets sucked into the next video clip on her device.  Told to stay in, she does. And then she goes out in the virtual world. Sucked into everything she barely raises her eyes to grunt at me when I ask for help. I wonder if this high price we are paying to flatten the curve and keep our distance has caused irreparable harm. Have we created a generation of self-absorbed phone addicts?

I try to stay connected to my daughter, I ask her to come to sit with me and talk. “Later Daddy,” she says, “I’m on facetime.”

I protest that I am a real person sitting right here in the real world. She just smiles back at me like I am a lost old fuddy duddy. To her, connecting on facetime is the real world.

Am I really that old?

If there is anything that this virus has cost us beyond the death toll and sadness, it’s a loss of connections with each other. In-person human connection is far more powerful than what is being broadcast over digital signals on the internet. But here we are relying on this form of connection to remain in touch with friends, families, and business contacts.

Will our society continue with this new form of connection long after the virus is gone? Is this another price we pay for the insidious strands of RNA that wrapped its grasp around the planet?

My heart aches as I watch my child held in the grasp of her device. I hope this is a phase and one day soon she will realize that the people right in front of her are far more important than the image broadcast over a screen.

I hope we can come back together without the need for a screen between us.

I hope we can break the addiction of the screens. I hope we can find a way to help those lost souls who have fallen deep into other forms of addiction while the viral war wages around them.

The end of this madness can’t come too soon.