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Screens are our tether to reality right now, our connection to whats beyond our boxed-in lives.
Too much screen time is bad in normal times, but these are not normal times.
Screen time is all we have.
Just like our understanding of time, though, what we watch on those screens is making things blurry.
Watching a comedy that should provide light escapism somehow manages to remind us of COVID-19.
Cable news can sometimes hyperbolize news events.
None of this seems like hyperbole.
I watch it and think: You shouldnt be taking the bus!
Why are you even going out?
Why are you spending money on anything that isnt antibacterial soap?
Did you Purell that phone?
Then Im like, Roman Roy, what are you doing in Vegas right now?
Its shut down, dude!
couple in theFidelity adwho keep smugly planning what to do with all their retirement money.
All that cash youve been saving has gone straight down the drain because COVID-19 tanked the markets!
When the news becomes overwhelming, I turn to my usual escape valve of movies and TV shows.
But those valves dont always function effectively.
Sometimes thats my own fault.
Deciding to watchSteven SoderberghsContagionprobably wasnt the best way to feel less overwhelmed.
How is that so different from the news in 2020?
Fine, heres one important difference: The online kook inContagionis notAlex Jones.
Its Jude Law with bad teeth that still fail to make him look unattractive.
So, I try that instead.
What would happen if, God seriously forbid, the illness got to her?
I trywatching other things, likeJeopardy!
(Oh God, what if Baby Yoda got COVID-19?
Can puppets get COVID-19?
)Cheer: These kids are doing the complete opposite of social distancing.
Also: IsJerryokay?!
Nothing on our screens can make whats happening go away.
Yet we repeatedly turn to those screens because what other choice do we have?
Fire up our laptops.
Switch on our televisions.
We look to our screens because theyre what most readily connect us to the sobering present.
Theres no crystal ball to peer into for answers to such questions.
But there is the TV.
So I turn it on.
And right now, asSt.
Vincent once sang, it looks just like a window.
