AS this goes to print, I will be on a dream holiday in a place I have aspired to visit for at least the past 20 years.

Having booked the flights and sorted the itinerary, I could then barely bring myself to think about it in case something – not least covid – called the whole thing off.

I've only just started telling people I'm going.

Not that it particularly matters given, I'd say, 85 per cent of those I've mentioned it to have no idea where I'm talking about. "It's off Ecuador," I try. Or, "It's on the Equator," though, to be fair, that doesn't narrow it down desperately. Or, "It's where Darwin developed his ideas for the theory of evolution." Pause. "Charles Darwin."

I am leaving for the airport in five hours – a red eye flight, so this five hours involves sleep time too – and I still haven't packed, just in case I need to immediately unpack again.

What I mean to say is, this is a really big deal. A one-off, bank-balance-quaking, trip of a lifetime.

"Don't worry though," I keep telling people, "I'll still be checking my emails."

For all Boris Johnson's concerns about the length of time it takes to slice a piece of cheese, working from home is not the preserve of the skiver.

The Western office worker was already suffering from a hyperactive, 24/7 connectivity-is-king culture. And then our homes, for those of us lucky enough to be able to work from home, became our offices too.

There's no distinction between work life and home life. The prime minister says home workers make coffee and "walk slowly to the fridge" for this hypothetical chunk of cheese.

He speaks from the perspective of those for whom the distance between rooms is significant enough to be time consuming.

My desk and my fridge are apart by – let me just double check – that's right, four paces. That would need to be some seriously slow-mo stepping for cheese to interfere with my deadlines.

More than two years of being relentlessly switched on has made switching off even harder. The easy access to emails functions as an umbilical cord tethering worker to work no matter where they roam.

The New York Times had a viral piece last year about why 37 year olds are scared of their 23-year-old employees. I certainly don't have any employees but I am spending more time in contact with members of Generation Z, both in journalism and in another role supervising Masters students at a university.

It's a small sample size but I do find they are a lot less afraid to say "no" to requests and a lot better at prioritising their health and private life over work.

For us older Millennials, perhaps the 2008 crash looms long in our memories or it's the result of enduring an education system that still awarded certificates for perfect attendance, but we're generally not as good at that.

Raised Presbyterian, I also have a sick adherence to valuing a strong work ethic. Whatever you do, work heartily.

It's only now I'm routinely associating with younger people that I'm starting to feel the creak of generational differences.

Only last year, I'm sure it can't be longer ago than that, I was the youngest person in the office. It was only two years ago, surely, that I graduated?

It would seem the passage of time is more elastic than I would like to think and all the technological skills I've diligently kept abreast of are now past their use by date.

My friend's 18-year-old was recently furious at a segment on BBC Radio Scotland. "Why do they keep saying 'mobile phone'? It's just a phone!"

Even with a working landline in the house, the mobile telephone is the default and the original phone, the Phone 1.0, is obsolete in their imaginations.

I suppose for younger generations, the words "email" and "mail" are similarly interchangeable, given that they've only known electronic mail and physical post is a bit of a novelty item.

They don't have memories of Saturday morning TV programmes giving out email addresses like the future had arrived early before the disparaging words, "Or you can still send snail mail".

Snail mail is a bit of a party trick these days. I love sending cards and I particularly love sending postcards. I'm pretty much begging for an asteroid to burst down and take me out.

For the Zoomers, though, email is as outdated as the Pony Express. Those under 30 report using Google Docs for group work, Zoom and iMessage.

I notice increasingly that younger people – from PR professionals with pitches to students looking for help with dissertations to readers wanting to share story tips – send Twitter DMs (direct messages). I'm sure if I had an Instagram account the same set up would follow.

My various email inboxes are chock-full but the make up has changed. From fond electronic letters for keeping in touch with friends and family overseas, they are now awash with newsletters, spam and order notifications on top of everything else.

I have three work email inboxes, a personal email account, a Children's Hearings Scotland address in my role as a panel member and I monitor another inbox as secretary for an organisation. My work inbox currently has 2591 unread emails.

This isn't to mention three different Teams accounts and multiple Slack channels to keep on top of. Turning my back for one minute risks a mountain of unchecked communications becoming an avalanche.

It's hard not to panic at the thought of leaving the inboxes alone, of the additional work that will accumulate. But then, the constant batter of unbroken communication is wildly unhealthy. A Gen Z would say no.

On the Galapagos islands, where I am, there are tortoises of more than a century old. For the world's oldest living land mammal you have to travel to the island of St Helena, in the South Atlantic Ocean, where you will find Jonathan, a tortoise of 190 years young.

Giant tortoises can credit their great longevity to the fact they burn energy slowly. There is an obvious lesson for me here, should I choose to learn it.