At nearly 60, I’ve learnt to keep ‘the internet’ at arm’s

length
thetimes.co.uk/article/robert-crampton-at-nearly-60-ive-learnt-to-keep-the-internet-at-arms-length-f5jn76vsw

Robert Crampton

Unless you’re a girl or young woman aged 16 to 24, then “the internet”, a global study
reveals, is “good for your mental health”. I’m not surprised that being online, certainly
excessively, is ruinous for adolescent women, piling on as it does extra potential anxieties
at a vulnerable age. As for the upbeat news, however, I seriously doubt it is true. Or at
least, it doesn’t tell us much. The categories, for one thing, are pretty broad. What a
multitude of sins and virtues are contained, for instance, within “the internet”, an
imprecise phrase without much descriptive use since about 2005, a bit like saying “the
world wide web” or “bulletin board”.

I wouldn’t say the internet was either good or bad for my mental health, but only because
I am exceptionally careful to keep it at arm’s length. I suppose it could be good for me if I
skilled up and explored what was available beyond my personal holy trinity of YouTube,
Wikipedia and BBC iPlayer. Yet the risk of expanding my digital adventures is that new
discoveries could be catastrophic in terms of self-esteem, gambling away the house,
turning into David Icke etc.

Or merely just time-consuming. I used to enjoy online quizzes until I was doing them for
three hours every night and my wife complained. I just don’t trust myself enough, even at
nearly 60, to stay out of trouble.

I keep on the path of righteousness by denying myself access to huge swathes of the
limitless electronic universe, the equivalent of someone who concludes planet Earth is a
hostile place so never leaves Nuneaton. I eschew social media, pornography, gambling,
anything showing graphic content from real-life crime scenes, anything smacking of
conspiracy theory, eBay, adverts, games, upgrades and (most importantly, owing to a
gossamer-thin skin) any content that might involve seeing a criticism of me.

Yep, the good news for any potential trolls out there is your barbs and insults will hit me
hard, get straight inside my head and mess with it good and proper. Except the bad news
is, they won’t, because I won’t see them. Apologies to anyone writing anything nice about
me online. It’s like your teachers used to say when the school trip was cancelled because
some bad lads at the back of the coach were mooning old ladies on the motorway: “One
or two idiots have spoilt it for everyone else.”

If my smartphone were not just a highly circumscribed research and comms tool but
rather my way of life, as it is for many, my mental health would not just suffer, it would
collapse. If I scrolled and searched and swiped and shared, and texted and tweeted, and

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friended and followed, and commented and clicked and all the rest of it as
indiscriminately, rapidly, voraciously and frequently as the average Gen Zer, I’d have a
breakdown within 24 hours.

All those pictures, boasts, opinions and put-downs coming at you, nonstop! The gossip,
the lies, the banalities, the complexities! All those strangers! Come to think of it, all those
friends and relatives too, 24/7! Nightmarish. I’d not have any grip on reality at all. Or
rather, that virtual, irrational, disposable world would become my reality, wouldn’t it?
Which is terrifying. We say that youngsters are hypersensitive, dismiss them as
snowflakes who can’t take any heat at all. I reckon they’re the opposite. I reckon they
must be tough as boots.

Lights out

“Did you see the northern lights?” a colleague asked me first thing yesterday morning. I
suspect it was a similar story up and down the country. My reply was possibly less
commonplace: “Northern lights?” I asked. “Northern shites, more like. I’ve seen them up
close and personal, in Finland if you please, and they were still rubbish there.” While they
can look spectacular on camera, in the flesh the northern lights were a grubby green
splodge on the horizon. A decent winter sunset on a cold clear day is way more
impressive.

So, at the risk of sliding ever further into grumpy old mandom, I’m adding the northern
lights to the list of things I think are seriously overrated. This list includes, but is no way
limited to, picnics, the royal family, fame, Banksy, Ed Sheeran, hot weather, champagne,
truffles, linen, silk, strawberry jam, American football, golf, living in the countryside,
Converse, luxury cars and Thomas the Tank Engine. Other suggestions welcome.

Avocado alarm

Christian Aid has issued a report about the future of avocados. It’s called “Getting
Smashed” so, first things first, respect for the title. Quality pun. The research says climate
change is going to reduce — or scoop out, if you will — production of the hipster’s
favourite soapy fruit by as much as 41 per cent by 2050. It’s back to Marmite and jam,
toast-wise.

In Petorca in Chile, from where the UK imports many of its avocados, it takes 320 litres of
water to grow one knobbly green pear. That’s not sustainable, especially for a product
with such a narrow window of edibility, about six hours in my experience between rock-
hard and two thirds brown.

Ah well. I didn’t eat my first avocado until I was 25 and it looks as though I won’t be eating
them much beyond 60, not at the price to which they will soon presumably rise. Never
mind. As with friends and fashions, toast toppings come and go.

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