Truth be told

Dr Fahim Chand | Monday October 12, 2026 15:05

Now hold on, before you conclude I have finally lost my marbles, I have absolutely no intention of testing this theory. Going somewhere unfamiliar, exciting as it may be, is inevitably accompanied by the anxiety of finding the place. Remarkably, Google Maps has rendered this particular human anxiety almost obsolete.

Though, truth be told, I occasionally miss going analogue: unfolding an enormous paper map across the bonnet of the car and navigating using functioning neurons rather than satellites. So, for the vast majority, I assume, change is good. As for myself, I remain undecided.

I embrace technology and all that it brings, but occasionally find myself longing for a world that was simpler, more stimulating, you read that correctly, and dare I say, more fun. I’m sure Gen Alpha, Millennials, Gen Z or whatever demographic classification we have arrived at this week would sigh loudly and roll their eyes.

Perhaps they would be justified. But I have certainly experienced my share of change. One of the most neuron-jolting episodes involved me jumping an ocean, figuratively of course, and relocating to a foreign country. I risk cliché-mongering when I say it was like being struck by lightning.

Here I was in my tiny, beloved hometown of Lobatse, entirely satisfied that we were living at the height of technological sophistication because we had streetlights at night. This allowed my family and me to take a nightly stroll to the Pep Store and back home. In my pyjamas, no less.

Hey, not a bad way to spend a life. Imagine, then, moving to Canada, where it seemed the day never really ended because a lightbulb occupied virtually every available space. I adjusted quickly and soon had a wonderful cohort of cherished friends. One thing that immediately captivated me was the sheer abundance of sport. I dived headfirst into almost all of it, with the obvious exception of North American football. You know, the one with the egg-shaped ball. Given my less imposing stature at the time, I’m reasonably certain I wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds before requiring transportation more commonly associated with casualties of war.

I also developed an obsession with following professional sport. And one thing Canada had in spades was information. I remember eagerly awaiting the Sunday newspapers to discover who had the highest batting average in Major League Baseball or whether Darryl Sittler of the Toronto Maple Leafs had added to his goal tally.

For those unfamiliar with the name, think of today’s equivalent as checking Kylian Mbappé’s football exploits for the week. I would spend hours studying the top ten players in each sport and analysing their statistics. Sunday became a weekly event. I waited for those newspapers with the anticipation of a child waiting for Christmas.

If someone had told me then that one day I would carry a device in my pocket capable of conjuring almost any statistic I desired, day or night, Wi-Fi permitting, I would probably have had them committed to the nearest asylum. Or, at the very least, fainted myself.

But here we are. We now live inside a social-media buffet where almost anything imaginable is available for immediate consumption. I love it.

I am, after all, almost pathologically insatiable for information. But occasionally I wonder whether this extraordinary social nirvana has darker ingredients lurking beneath the surface.

I recently read about a Russian social-media influencer who reportedly died while undertaking an extreme diet, consuming around 10,000 calories a day before attempting to lose the weight again. Eventually, tragically, the experiment ended with the loss of his life.

It is remarkable how easily danger can hide inside this extraordinary world of information, connection and constant comparison. The modern world is demanding, relentless and increasingly unforgiving, with expectations of perfection that can quietly become fuel for anxiety, insecurity and, in the most tragic circumstances, destruction.

Most people will read a story like this and barely bat an eyelid, because their social-media feeds are already overflowing with similar tragedies.

We scroll, absorb, react and move on, often before the previous piece of information has even had time to settle. And perhaps that is the irony.

I spent my childhood impatiently waiting seven days for information. Today, information waits impatiently for me. Maybe the Sunday paper wasn’t merely a slower way to get the news. Maybe, without knowing it, it was teaching us how to live without needing to know everything.