Turn off the ($%&)()$ Technology

This is actually a topic I've been wanting to write about for quite a long time.  I think it started as COVID hit us hard.  For those of you that don't know, I have spent my entire career working with computer software and data/information.  To be a bit boastful, I'm very good at it as I have a natural ability to figure things out, and figure out how to put data together so that it's useable by anyone.  I also have a drive and intensity that are hard to match.  The tougher the problem, the more I like it.  It's not always a healthy approach, but that's a topic for another entry...

When a crisis or urgent need comes up, I get called.  In March of 2020, a co-worker and I were called into a meeting where the topic was "help Lindsay get more sleep", literally.  We knew it was COVID related, but the scope and magnitude were unknown (as it usually is).  It turns out that an analyst working with employee health data had to manually track employees that were exposed to COVID along with their health status.  Basically, whether they had COVID or not.  At the time, we had very little to go on.  It was all new and trying to assess who had it and who didn't changed hourly.  When you have over 700,000 members (i.e. patients) and thousands of staff just in the state of Washington, the task of data collection is daunting.  Individual nurses in the employee health department were tracking staff exposure and patient status, but Lindsay had the task of compiling all the data by hand so that our COVID Command Center (executive team responsible for determining how we respond) could make decisions on what we could do to contain COVID.

One of my teammates and I started to dig in.  It was all in spreadsheets that were in different formats with each of the nurses doing their best to track what was relevant, which changed over time.  No wonder Lindsay couldn't sleep.  Working with Lindsay, we quickly figured out how to compile the data together to make her job easier.  We also had to work with the nurses to help them understand why having the spreadsheets in the same format were important.  We worked on this 24x7 for about two weeks.  At the time, I was just running on adrenaline.  Long story, short, is that we were able to put something together that automated the entire process, and Lindsay could get some sleep.

That's just the background...

Prior to that, my parents were struggling with health issues, and I decided to take a break from social media.  It seemed that every day there was someone, somewhere pissed off about something and it was taking a toll.  Honestly, the thing that got me back on social media was seeing ALL of the misinformation about COVID being spread on social media.  People were expecting "an answer" and got really upset when the information changed.  We were in new space with COVID, and literally had new information hourly at first.  I got back on social media because I new the truth each and every day.  I didn't share what we were doing at our company (that's illegal), but basically shared the facts as I knew them.  At first, the response was overwhelmingly positive.  However, over time, people got frustrated with the situation (understandable) and would grab onto any information they could find that would prove COVID wasn't that bad and we can return to normal.  Trust me, I wanted to get back to normal just as much as the next person, but I knew we couldn't.  It hit a breaking point for me when the media and people on social media started posting information from different "doctors" about how COVID was "nothing serious".  In one case, they posted information from a doctor that also believed in "demon semen" (yep, it was real).  They were all lies, but people in their desperation to get back to normal believed anything that would help them justify getting back to life as we knew it.  At that point, I stopped posting.  It didn't matter what I knew or what I shared.  People stopped listening, and it was angering and depressing.

Unfortunately, I watched the news and stayed on social media, which was a HUGE mistake.  The more I read, the more depressed and angry I got.  As someone who played a lot of team sports in my life, I knew we had to come together and work together to win.  For whatever reason, that was not what we did.  We yelled, screamed, and beat our chests trying to get back to normal at any costs.  The view by many was that if people are dying so be it.  "Bad things don't happen to me".  Whatever...

This past April, I realized what a toll the media and social media were taking on me.  Turn on any news program and there are tons of commentators that do their best to convince you to be pissed off about something, somewhere.  It doesn't matter what your political perspective is, there is a news program that convinces you that you should feel ripped off.  People tune in every day for their daily dose of "I should be pissed off or feel ripped off by..."  People shared things on social media that were not based in fact (I made that mistake, too - it's hard, even knowing what I know).  

Debbie and I decided it was time to break the chain.  We stopped watching the news and generally stopped watching TV in general.  We loved the Food Network, but that's hard when you have two people trying to diet.  Also, we reduced our presence on social media.  With COVID, I decided to take an active presence on social media to battle misinformation.  That was a mistake.  People didn't listen or wanted to argue about anything and everything (see previous comments about pissed off).  It shouldn't have taken  a toll, but it did.  I couldn't believe how gullible we'd become, willing to believe anything that would help us feel better about what was going on.  It sucked.  I made the conscious choice to only post cartoons, jokes, and inspiration.  I posted points of view that I shared, but tried to avoid that as much as possible.  

About the same time, I was starting my diet and exercise program.  One big suggestion they had was to stop using technology as often and definitely stop using it long before bedtime, which is something I'm still working on.   I glance at social media, and I will turn on the TV for things I know I'll enjoy (i.e. soccer matches), but have noticed that by reducing my use of the media and social media, I'm just generally a happier person.  I avoided social media at first because I knew the pitfalls, but decided to get in as it was a way to catch up with people I lost contact with.  I still use it for that, but I find it really easy to scroll past a post that is controversial and not make a comment (as much as I want to sometimes).  Also, not watching the news, I don't feel like I have a right to be pissed off about something.  I try to stay current as much as I can, but my mental health is far more important.

This has made a huge difference in my life, my outlook, and my perspective.  I exercise and diet because I want to.  I don't have a million things cluttering my life and getting in the way of the things that are most important:  my health, my wife, and my family.  Yeah, people and perspectives still annoy me, but I stopped letting it consume me.  Honestly, it's probably saved my life, along with perspective from Debbie, my awesome partner!  I work a high stress job, and when you  factor in media and social media, you can fall into a deep, dark hole. 

I choose to spend my time reading, relaxing, and being with the ones I love (both in person and via the phone).  When you eliminate the things that annoy you, and honestly don't directly impact your life, you're a much happier person.