My highly social nature + my incessant need to uncover truth has traditionally been a source of pride, enabling me to be a journalist, sleuth and master of no trade (aka "generalist").
But pride cometh before the fall: thanks to current networking technology, I can now feed my social and search beasts at alarming rates. It started slowly with email....escalated with Facebook....and was fueled to whole new levels by IM, Skype messaging and Twitter. Now I have services like FourSquare which text my phone to immediately notify me who is going where and subsequently permit me to research, add tips, stalk others ... the ADD possibilities for those seeking external stimulation are endless!
Specifically, I'm noting that my capacity for reading and writing beyond a short email or tweet is eroding; that my Facebook activity steps up considerably when I am forced to read through a document longer than one page; and that I must multitask with my human-computer interface when encountering a simple human interface, lest I neglect my extroversion of any possible input.
So it was with great relief that I had the patience to read all of this piece (yes, first seen as a friend's post on Facebook but actually a normal-length article from Slate...which still writes articles vs. being pure post redux). It neutralized my neurosis by stating it in concrete and physiological terms.
And that's good enough for me. Just proud that I finally finished this post!
This very post is a cry out for intervention. Sponsored by AT&T.
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1 comments:
Here's my cure for this disorder: Having signed up for dodgeball, much like 4square I think, I realized, I really don't want the tasty tidbit of information provided upon pulling the lever so to speak. My phone vibrated every half hour. If only the bits of information meant something to me. Instead, my one and only friend updated his every move. "I'm going to the hardware store. I'm driving on the 101. I'm getting out of my car. I'm picking my nose." Okay, he didn't say he was picking his nose, but he may as well been, his information was best left in private, or at least in his car. I get the point, if he'd actually updated that he was at a bar just down the road from me, we could meet up. I get it. But, it didn't work out that way, and I was out of the box and finding my own cheese.
Sorry for the long response...your Sonoma County friend is tired from refreshing her browser on facebook so many times today.
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