Do You Suffer From Disconnect Anxiety?

Hell yes!

Nothing strikes more fear into my heart than not being able to access the internet. I'm not sure when this happened to me. I suspect it is something that happened slowly over time. I don't think that there is a cure. Truth be told, if there is a cure, I wouldn't want it.

Why am I writing about this? As many of you loyal blog readers know, I cancelled my cable TV a few months ago. Since then, I have been downloading tv shows and movies to fill my entertainment void. It was all working well until last night. I have been sick for the last couple days (just a cold) and have not sleeping very well. Luckily I had downloaded a bunch of stuff to watch and brought my laptop to bed with me. I was half way through a horrible movie (Darjeeling Limited) at 4:30 am when poof! My AC Adaptor died, which meant that my laptop had 45 minutes of life left.

What to do with those 45 minutes? I checked my emails (obviously this was a priority) and frantically searched the Gateway website for a replacement AC Adaptor. I called their (604) number only to be told that they don't stock that part anymore (my computer is a year old!) and are only able to help customers based in the good ole US of A. Growl. I call Future Shop and sure enough they have the part and can mail it to me in 8 to 10 business days for the low price of $112. ANXIETY. 8 to 10 days? I don't care that the power cord is one quarter of the purchase price of my laptop. What am I going to do for the next 8 to 10 business days? Earth Hour nearly pushed me to the edge.

I recognize that in the grand scheme of things, this is a really small problem. But at the moment, it seemed like an absolutely unreasonable time frame. I have since pulled out my 8 year old desktop from the closet and have spent the last several hours updating it. I feel a little calmer now that I know that I can handle the next 8 to 10 business days. I'm sure that I'm not the only one with this anxiety. It seems normal to me that the first thing I should do when I get home is check my emails (before checking phone messages). I think it strange when people haven't checked their emails in days. Don't they know they are behind? Doesn't that freak them out?

I blame SFU. Course work and assignments are now submitted online. All communications at Universities is now via email. There is no such thing as handouts in class. Instead students are responsible for printing out handouts from an email or website. This developed into a fear of not being prepared. Profs like to email important things 5 minutes before class starts and expect everyone to have it. As a result, I got into the habit of checking my emails compulsively. If an announcement was made, it was often last minute via email, and not checking your email was not a valid excuse for missing a deadline. Since graduating, hardly any of my emails are so important that it can't wait a day. So why the urgency? Maybe I need a 12 step to reduce my compulsive email checking.