Sat in my bedroom I haven’t even changed out of my PJs but I’ve managed to buy some new shoes, chat to a friend, organise an event, negotiate a contract, do a bit of work and update the world with my random musings. It’s been a fairly productive day but how would I have managed without the internet? The amount of attention I dedicate to each individual thing is usually no more than a few minutes before I switch to something else. I can’t focus my mind on one thing. Individually each should have taken half an hour instead I spent the whole day flitting back and forth between them. I currently have 15 windows open and even as I write this my skype is flashing so I may have to… Ok done. I’m back.
Surfing the web is like walking down Oxford Street having a conversation with someone while intermittently popping into the shops to buy something and carrying an Encyclopaedia which you occasionally glance in, when someone you barely know pokes you and starts telling you their life story but as you make your excuses you get getting crapped on by a virus-filled advertising pigeon.
And we do this daily. For fun. And it’s hard to do anything successfully because our attention is constantly being hijacked by something else. The solution? Delete the internet.
No, just kidding. I’m setting myself two hours a day of being “unplugged”. Not literally, as everything is wireless so unplugging actually does nothing at all. But I’m going to try and switch off the internet – Yes, that includes you blackberry – and be unreachable for a little bit of time every day. We shall see how I get on…
Cartoon by Dave Walker.
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