eNERDgy, Incorporated

Social media addiction is a severe disorder, and can cause severe side effects. It's no wonder that the 32nd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry held a session titled “Stress & Technology - Could Facebook & Computers Be Making You Sick?”. Research presented at this meeting was eye-opening. Dr. Andrew Przybylski revealed in his presentation that social media such as Facebook can be mind-numbing and addictive to such an extent that it quickly diminishes genuine human connection. ...but, let's be honest. We all have a toxic love-hate relationship with social media. Our connection to these platforms allows us to share every private facet of our lives, air out dirty laundry, and for some of us that even means internet fame (or infamy). It's like the relationship between a drug and its addict. The more you use it, the more you’ll need it; and the more you do it, the less you’ll be able to live without it. This behavior is poisonous.  ...

2020 brought an end to countless things, including my already barely existent blogging presence.  There are plenty of reasons I wish the tragedies and horrors we faced in 2020 could have been prevented from happening, but whatever you believe; whatever the reason; whatever the climate; COVID-19 was a freight train too  fast on the tracks.  No one, and nothing was going to stop it. I attempted to utilize my time during the early days of The Lockdown industriously, but failed spectacularly as the days wore on. What I wanted  to do was return to work, to live my life, game with my gaming group once a week and enjoy the company of my then girlfriend (and now wife) and my kids. Some of that, I got to do. The rest of it, because of COVID-19, and the local shutdowns, I did not. In fact, I couldn't  have a gaming  group once a week now, because most of us were unwilling to risk contracting a virus that none of us really understood, and those who were willing to bra...