Distraction free living

Let me distract you with a new blogpost. 

Lately, I've been wondering about distraction. What is it that I did as a kid before the internet was there? Sure, I used to play pc games and try and program or do other things on the pc, but I wasn't 'connected' until my early twenties. And frankly, I can't immediately remember what it was I spend my time with back then. Which, according to this link is exactly one of those 'always connected' problem symptoms.

I thought my decreasing memory was caused by my bore out two years ago, and even though it might have had some effect, the more logical cause could be the never ending stream of available information. I consume lots of it, by reading blogposts and even more related links from those posts and by watching interesting videos on youtube. I notice myself picking up my phone way too many times a day (in general) but I also notice I want to look up every unknown fact there is on the interwebs whenever something crosses my mind or a conversation with someone. And I really, really do think this has it's effect on my memory, my creativity and my attention span. I notice that mostly every question I have on any random life issue gets entered into a Google search providing me with as many possible answers I wish to look into, all mostly more focused on keeping my attention than to providing me the desired information. I think this is a problem and a damned bigger one than anyone is willing to admit.

The previously mentioned article states there is not much research done on the subject but as someone who is questioning the 'benefits' of always being online himself I am a strong believer this is causing my personal troubles. As an example, I feel stressed because I 'need to keep up with the news'. This only means I open up one single dutch news website regularly, but I also keep thinking of articles and blogs I 'need' to visit. In a way, most things on the internet are designed to make you hooked and a lot of them work :-)

What I'm going to try and come up with is some sort of method to keep track of my internet behaviour, a way to diminish this and how this will affect me. Perhaps tracking it here is the most convenient way for now, even though it means opening up my laptop which makes it easier to get distracted again. But, I've got to start somewhere...

Stay tuned, or not, if you feel distracted by it ;-)