Setting Personal Boundaries in A Hyper-Connected World

8 ideas for creating healthy separation

Photo by Noelle Otto from Pexels

There’s no arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic has created immense challenges for not only our physical health, but also our mental health. A few months in, I certainly found that I was spending significantly more time on personal devices than ever before—to remain in the loop, entertained, and to help create some semblance of “connection” with friends and family. Since I already felt that devices were occupying too much of my time pre-pandemic, it didn’t take long to start wreaking havoc on my mental health.

A few months into our so-called “new normal,” my typical day looked something like this:

• I woke up and looked at my phone within 15 minutes, checking all of the notifications that had already somehow piled up.
• I would then get ready and make breakfast, proceeding to eat said breakfast while watching a video by one of my favourite YouTubers. I convinced myself that this added some lightheartedness to my morning.
• Shortly after I would get to work, on my computer, typically for a full eight-hour workday (with breaks).
• Some days I would take a walk in the actual outdoors, if I could muster up the motivation (the inevitable groundhog day syndrome made walks…