Imagine a world in which people rarely leave their homes. Everything we used to do outside the home is now done online. Home is where you are born, raised, and live for your entire life. Actually, it doesn’t sound so far-fetched a year after the start of the coronavirus crisis. This last year has taught us that we can literally live online. But should we?
There is a lot to be said about the online environment. The internet and its associated technologies have made life more convenient and accessible in so many ways. But it could also be harming our ability to interact with one another. It could be causing an unhealthy level of social isolation. Perhaps it is time to rethink how much we do online.
What We Can Do
It’s amazing to think of all the things we can do online, things we would never have thought of doing sitting behind a computer screen some 30 years ago. Think of your most basic life functions. How much of them can be facilitated through online activity?
1. Food and Water
Thanks to cooperative supermarkets and services like Instacart, we don’t have to leave home to get food and water. We can order it online and have it delivered to our homes. The same with restaurants. Just about every eatery now offers delivery.
2. Healthcare
Not interested in visiting the doctor’s office and spending an hour in the waiting room? No problem. Set up a telehealth visit instead. Assuming your doctor writes a prescription, you do not even have to go to the pharmacy. Order online at Canada Pharmacy and have your Canadian prescription drugs sent to you in the mail.
3. Social Interaction
Meeting friends and family members online is easy. There are literally dozens of applications for mobile devices and desktop computers. Spend as much time as you want talking to your loved ones on the screen.
4. News and Entertainment
The online world provides a plethora of news and entertainment options. From streaming this to live feeds of that, there is no need to leave the home to catch a sporting event, watch a movie, play games, etc. It is all just a touch screen away.
Humans Are Social Creatures
We have the technology to conduct most of our lives online. Many of us can work from home. We can do everything from arranging travel to buying a new car online. But all of our technology does not eliminate the fact that humans are social creatures. It’s one thing to get prescription medications from an online Canadian pharmacy. It is an entirely different matter to avoid all human contact altogether.
Human beings need social contact. We need to have face-to-face conversations that allow us to look one another in the eyes and sense one another’s emotions. We need the benefits of human contact – both physically and emotionally. It is the way we were made.
The fact is that we are not machines. We are not robots to be programmed by higher powers who believe, because they hold some official office, that they know better than everyone else. Humanity’s history of social enterprise is as old as humanity itself. No amount of online technology can change that.
Keep Online Life in Perspective
If the coronavirus crisis has taught us anything, it is the fact that we need to keep our online lives in perspective. Doing certain things online may be a necessary substitute at the current time, but we must be incredibly careful that such things do not become permanent. We can live our lives online, but it’s not good for us.
