What it is to be Fully Connected

I read the book of this title by Julia Hobsbaum with great interest. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was letting myself in for. What I did know was that Julia Hobsbaum, the networking knowledge guru, is leading the way in challenging the impact of social media on our health. This is where I get interested, because supporting good health is what I am passionate about.

Julia has coined the phrase “Social Health”. She talks of how social media needs to be managed in an age of increasing overwhelm. How anxiety provoking is it to reach for your phone and see all those notifications? How stressful is it to feel obliged to respond to the barrage of communication on a daily, even hourly, basis? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and texts to name but a few…….then there are all the emails and whatever other apps you are signed up to.

The mental health of our youngsters has been in the spotlight for some time now, making front page headlines. What is the impact of relentless electronic connectivity on developing brains? How does online bullying impact youngsters’ sense of wellbeing? How does the presentation of seemingly perfect lives distort perspective and expectations of our young, and not so young? I could go on……..

Whilst the impact of digital connectivity has its concerns, I do feel the tide is turning, as some people begin to reject this revolution, or at least, change their relationship to it.

I have had three power cuts in my home this last week, all after dark. The lights went down, the television died and the wifi could no longer wifi. I lit candles. What is it about candles, about that flickering flame, that ignites a sense of well being? Is it to do with our primal connection to fire? Is there something ancestral in our DNA that harks back to storytelling around an open fire, that sense of community that is lost as we stay glued to our phones? On one of the evenings, I took my dog for a walk (what else was there to do?) and took time to admire the  brilliance of a full moon. I pondered how we have lost touch with our connection to the earth, the rhythms of light and dark and those things that calm the soul.

I went to hear Andy Puddicombe of Headspace talk at an Action for Happiness event in 2018. In his words…. “there is nothing wrong with technology, only how we use it. The first thing I do when I get a new mobile phone is delete all the apps I don’t need. The ones it won’t let me delete, I slide onto a page I never look at. I am in charge of this tool that improves my life. It doesn’t rule me”.

We can all use social media to our benefit, not detriment. And when we do, maybe there will be some time to look up and feel the vibration of the moon, the earth beneath our feet, and feel our connection to something much bigger than ourselves. That would be my definition of “Fully Connected”.