It's not just the weather that's overheated and sweaty, so is the news. "Brexit" has become almost as frequent in vocabulary as the "F" word is in many a teen's chatter.
The engines of communication are at full throttle, spewing out ginormous clouds of words. Dire warnings, finger-wagging recriminations, and just plain shouting, all but drown out the few voices of reason and restraint.
If there is one thing that I have learned this month, it is that when a crisis arises, stay away from the twitterverse. Just two weeks ago as a potential critical incident was unfolding on the University of Toronto campus (a few sightings of a suspicious looking person elicited lock-downs and police searches - no fault found) I took to the live feed on Twitter®. I watched in slack-jawed amazement and then despair as unfounded, un-moderated, utterly untrue tweets appeared and gained traction. The tone of the related tweets became etched with fear. Such was the escalation that even I sitting my kitchen 60km away from the scene, felt the pierce of a sliver of panic - somebody could get really hurt by this wrong information.
Panic kills. It kills truth. It kills reason. It kills trust. It kills people.
TIME OUT!
I took a day away from the news yesterday, all the news, everywhere. Though I checked Facebook® once, I did not look at email, Twitter®, nor any news website. It was lovely, so lovely that I'm going to make such a sabbath rest a weekly observance. From now on, if you want to tell me something on a Sunday, pick up the phone and let's talk, real stuff.
©2016 April Hoeller
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