I must make a confession: by Day 2 of the Great Covid-19 Lockdown, I had already had enough.
Enough of WhatsApp fact and fiction, jokes, funny memes, videos – both serious and hilarious, short and long – and enough medical tips and false remedy advice to make my head spin.
The daily desire/trend to ‘share’ everything you receive (without verifying it) was now at epic proportions.
The prophets of doom were everywhere, alongside those who were rationally analysing the issue and how best to deal with it to prevent a germ holocaust.
Switching off the mobile phone and turning on the TV to get rid of the ‘noise’ was even worse.
Plenty of relevant and important news for sure, but enough filler material, regurgitation and reruns to make one want to turn to the DSTV repeats.
So much irrelevant conversation; so many expert opinions by professors and online ‘experts’ alike.
Our particular newspaper group promotes ‘news you can use’, which makes sense.
Academics talk about the information/action overload.
In other words, how much of the information you receive compels you to take necessary action?
Very little, I would presume. It might be interesting, educational or entertaining, but does not demand any change of plans.
Eish, maybe we are sharing another type of virus, Covert-19.
Are we surreptitiously rendering our minds unfit to assimilate any more coronavirus information?
Are we not numbing ourselves to the problem by being force-fed with facts?
Isn’t that what happened with the HIV/Aids endemic?
We got so tired of hearing about it that we began to ignore it, and then dismissed it in our daily conversation.
Does anyone realise that it is still with us and, together with TB, will probably kill more people than the Covid-19 virus will?
There was an old saying in church and lecturing circles: ‘The mind can only absorb what the seat can endure’ – not that this stopped preachers from going for length rather than depth in their sermons.
Perhaps TV coverage should only be on the hour, for 10 minutes. That’s enough to give ‘news we can use’ and to direct us to helpful hotlines and informative websites.
Alternatively, we can limit our own viewing time or switch to some ‘lighter’ channel to balance the scales.
By the way, the jokes and fun clips being circulated are not a matter of insensitivity. In all generations, such as war-time years, humour has been a vital coping mechanism.
I believe the psychological impact of the lockdown and glut of non-essential information will upset the state of mind and mental health of many citizens who may have a lower emotional threshold.
We (the media) are perhaps better equipped to deal with, and verify, the mounds of information – conflicting or otherwise – we receive daily.
At a guess, about 80% of what we receive goes into ‘File 13’; we dump what’s not relevant, true and worthwhile.
But can our brains receive, process, filter and accept or bin the overload of information so easily?
We can eat the fish and spit out the bones, but can everyone?
Perhaps more use of the ‘delete’ button will benefit us all, along with blocking unnecessary sources and using the ‘off’ button.
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