Health Officer Recommends --To escape Covid-19 AVOID DIGITAL DEVICES

Ha! Scared you, didn't I? Although the virus does indeed land on surfaces like keyboards and smartphones, they aren't telling us to "stay away from crowded websites" yet, or "maintain distance from computers".
What would life be like if they did, if "computer virus" became a biological as well as a digital thing?
What if the Chief Medical Officer told everyone "YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY DISTANCE YOURSELF FROM YOUR COMPUTER BEFORE IT KILLS YOU"? Imagine the panic then - and the wailing about the economy.
Maybe we'd spend more time outdoors, enjoying nature and fresh air, and less hunched over our digital devices. That would be healthier indeed.
Maybe, without email, we'd communicate with hand-written notes, dropping them into each others' mail slots like characters were forever doing in Victorian novels.
We could have message boards in every community -- physical ones that is, on suitable walls.
We could escape the group-herding of Facebook, the mindless trash-talk of Twitter, the surveillance of Google.
This is looking better by the minute. Maybe we'd learn to remember things again, instead of just Googling them. We'd keep mind and memory in our brains instead of out-sourcing them.
We'd avoid the prison camp of Smart Cities like the one Google-Alphabet is planning for Toronto's Waterfront district -- a prison worse than any hospital, one where it's civil rights that are on life-support.
We would no longer be stalked by our devices which track us around cities and stores, reporting our movements to police and advertisers alike.
Maybe the old-fashioned Soap Box Orator would come back to the parks and squares -- anyone with ideas to share would stand up and speak, keeping free speech alive in the "agora". (Stand at the edge of the crowd to listen, if you insist on avoiding physical contact -- at least you could get to see the faces of other regulars. Actual facial recognition!)
Being outside so much we could watch birds coming and going, and the colours of trees changing, and at night notice the movement of moon and stars.
I don't know about everyone else but I'm feeling healthier already! I do get the irony of what I'm saying though: I'm telling you online how great it would be if we all went offline. So far it's but a health-work-in-progress. But thanks for the possibility, "corona" virus: if only you really did crown our lives with this silver lining.


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