Technology - the cause of, and solution to, cronic worrying...

I worry too much. I've been known fear getting fired (despite the fact that the last person fired in my organization was let go sometime around 2003), falling housing prices (despite the fact that I'm not planning on selling my house anytime soon, and I have a fixed-rate mortgage, so it's not like it really matters), that that tingling sensation in my hand means I'm having a stroke, and that I'm going to die alone, having never found true love (I don't think this one's overblown).

But technology makes it possible for me to worry in all sorts of new ways. I have a cat camera to watch my cat, Nibbler. It's aimed at the basement, where her food and litterbox are, although she doesn't always spend a whole lot of time down there. I'm at work, and plan on doing some other stuff after work, so I won't be home for a while. I've been keeping an eye on the cat-cam, and haven't seen her all day. Which makes me worry.

See, Nibbler has a bad habit. OK, she actually has several bad habits, including using my arm as a chew toy and trying to eat whatever I'm trying to eat. But she also likes to bumrush the door when I come home or leave. It's a twice-daily routine - I open the door, she runs outside, I grab her and put her back in the house. Rinse and repeat until she's on the inside of the door and the door is closed.

When I'm leaving, I always glance around after the door is closed to make sure that she's not outside. But I always have this fear that she'll have sneaked out and I'll have missed her. When I see her on the cat-cam, I know she's inside and OK.

A few minutes ago, I opened a new tab in IE to load a page that doesn't work in firefox, and glanced at the nibblercam. She was on it, taking a drink of water, stretching, and then moving off-camera. So she's alive and OK.

If I hadn't happened to open the browser when she was there, I still would be worrying about her. Then again, if I didn't have the cat camera, I wouldn't know that she wasn't on camera for most of the day. So I'm not sure if technology makes me worry more, worry less, or just worry differently.