Internet Addiction
I have one; I do not think there is any point in denying it. I check Coolhunting, Boing Boing, Achewood, Penny Arcade, Cat and Girl, Schneier on Security, Securityfocus News and Vulnerabilities, Blunt Object, and several email accounts. Really, this is dead time. Between absorbing information about kind of neat stuff and reading about issues I can have no impact whatsoever on, I probably manage to throw away an impressive amount of my day in activities that, in terms of net effect on my environment, amount to staring into empty space.
There are plenty of excuses: “But it’s interesting!” “I’m keeping my finger on the pulse of the internet!” “I’m learning lots of neat things! About silly looking Japanese toys! And cats with captions!” But really, reading articles about the latest idiotic thing the TSA has done or the latest doublespeak from some political chump does absolutely nothing to better my life.
Posting here is something different: I’m saying something, ideas and thoughts are moving out of my mind and out of my control, and by extension out of my way. This is an underused brain-purge.
To get back to my original topic: I’m announcing an experiment. Except for the email and source files required to do my work, I’m taking a week off of reading. No websites. No books. What happens to a week when I’m forced to keep away from these distractions?
Tune in next week, and see!
October 6th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
See “The Artist’s Way”, page 87, section on “Reading Deprivation”.
“If you feel stuck in your life or in your art, few jumpstarts are more effective than a week of /reading deprivation/.
“No reading? That’s right: no reading. For most artists, words are like tiny tranquilizers. We have a daily quota of media chat that we swallow up. Like greasy food, it clogs our system. Too much of it and we feel, yes, fried.”
October 6th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Yup, that’s exactly what’s inspiring it. I figure that if I announced it I wouldn’t be able to shrug it off. I guess I’m starting after I post this comment.