Spazzing Out: How the Internet is Making Me Crazy

There was a very well-written piece in the Montreal Gazette this morning called "Off-Line, I Reconnected" by Juan Rodriguez. It was about his year of being "unplugged" from the internet (er..mostly unplugged).

This is an idea I've been thinking about for a while. I'm suffering from an increasingly disturbing inability to focus on anything for extended periods of time. In moments of silence, instead of being in the silence, with the silence, OF the silence, I reach for a new distraction.

I send and receive over 1000 text messages a month, which is now leading me to compulsively check my phone every few minutes (and become enraged if someone does not respond immediately to my messages). During the day (when I have access to a computer for 10 hours), I frantically rotate among my five separate email accounts and respond immediately to anything that is there, keep up on the 25 blogs that I'm "following," then realize that I have 27 windows open and I cannot remember exactly what it was that I was trying to work on before I became so hopelessly baffled by my own thought patterns.

I first noticed the frazzled phenomenon in my co-workers and would make jokes about corralling the Alzheimer's patients. But steadily, over time, I'm BECOMING one of the Alzheimer's patients. I'm losing the ability to focus on a single task through to completion. I start looking for information on one topic and find myself irrevocably lost in a great quagmire of information, clicking from link to link to link to link. I don't actually ABSORB any of the information I find. Ask me in 10 minutes and I will have NO IDEA what I was originally looking for.

"Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski." ~Nicholas Carr, The Shallows.

I find the whole thing disturbing. I'm losing the ability to absorb great thoughts. I read philosophical treatises and I have no idea what it is that I just read. My short attention span was even making the comprehension of a Dr. Suess book a bit....iffy.

I am getting dumber.

And the sad part is, I don't even have the internet at home anymore! *gasp* I KNOW, right??!

It wasn't even by choice. I was spending 10 hours a day on a computer at work, getting myself more and more frazzled, then coming home and spending an additional 4 hours on my netbook, feeding my Facebook addiction. It had to stop. First, I deleted my Facebook account. Then, my neighbor (and more importantly, his unsecured wi-fi) moved. And suddenly I have hours of time on my hands.

I've read more books in the last 3 months than I have in the previous 3 years. It's amazing what you can do with an extra 4 hours a day.

But I'm still feeling frazzled! Reactive! Illogical!!

I'm going to have to quit my job.

Or maybe just get the multi-tasking under control.

Most days, my brain feels about to explode. I literally feel motion sickness in response to the speed at which I change gears. My brain is rewiring itself, and I don't like it. Not one bit! It feels....well, quite frankly it makes me feel like a complete and total stark raving lunatic.

I frequently begin my work day by thinking to myself, "Today, I am NOT going to check my 5 email accounts every 10 minutes. Today, I am going to focus on this one thing until it's completed!"

Ahhh, good intentions....

The Immortal Beloved Letters

Reading Beethoven's letters to his "immortal beloved" causes me to think about how much things have changed in the last 200 years since these letters were written. Does anyone write love letters anymore? Does anything ever come in the mail anymore except bills, junk mail, and the occasional Hallmark greeting card?

When did we forget the beauty of the written word? Our communications these days are instantaneous. We've lost the ability to focus our minds, our attention, our affections. We are too busy texting and sexting. "My immortal beloved" has become "my bitch." Or worse yet, "my midnight booty call."

I can't remember the last time anyone said to me, "My heart is full of so many things to say to you...," but it's been merely days since I last heard, "Show me your boobs."

I can't help but feeling that something important, something beautiful has been lost.

Letter 3

Good morning, on July 7

Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V[ienna] is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

L.

For text to the other two letters, visit www.edepot.com/beetletters.html