Hour 2 of Ottawa Now for Wed. September 2nd, 2026

Over the past few years on Ottawa Now, we have dipped into the realm of digital detoxes. Whether it’s taking a break from your cellphone, or logging off social media for a few hours, the benefits are very real. Naturally, at first, it can be an extremely weird adjustment. And as students head back to the classroom, they are being greeted with a classroom cellphone ban. When a lecture is going on, the phone stays off, and that’s a far cry from the Summer screentime that students were used to. So in today’s edition of The Check-Up with Dr. Alykhan Abdulla, tech addiction is our main course. Speaking of education, the importance of school attendance is also more paramount than ever before, and that’s largely because high school students are now being graded on their punctuation. This year, attendance and participation will count towards a final 15 percent mark for Grades 9 and 10, and a final 10 percent mark for Grades 11 and 12. But what happens if the student is taking part in a sports tournament, or attending a milestone family birthday, or perhaps attending a funeral? We dig deeper with David Hutchison, a Professor at Brock University’s Department of Educational Studies. Plus, if you feel like you’re dodging more stingers than usual during your backyard BBQ's, you are not imagining things. Joining us to explain further is David Beresford, a Professor of Entomology at Trent University. In other words, he studies insects.