Amusing Ourselves to Death

     My present way to spend free time at home: the TV on while having interspersed conversations with my housemates; my lap top open beside me checking out factoids related to what I’m watching ( I usually have about 6 – 10 browsers open); Facebook and Skype open so messages and IM’s are coming through, and my cell, old faithful, bleeping out texts and calls at any given moment . Seriously, I’m not fully invested in any one thing I’m doing because there’s so many options at once. Now first things first, I do like constant access to information, but I do remember life being simpler. The present day subdivide of attention has me wondering whether present technologies are creating a new variant of attention deficient disorder?

    The reality is it’s getting harder to do solitary things when you’re never really by yourself. Growing up outside of the city without cable we had three channels. I talked to one person at a time in person or on the phone.  My attention was directed to the moment.  Now the possibility is always present to contact or be contacted by someone else that isn’t there. I blogged sometime ago about the change of hostels and the travel culture because of lap tops and Facebook, now that effect is even more prevalent. (link:  http://iwasjustthinkingsomething.blogspot.com/2011/05/changing-face-of-travel.html) For a brief recap,  I mentioned that travelers were choosing to communicate with people back home rather than engaging with other people right there in the hostel.  Outside of travel that phenomenon is happening more often when people get together socially. Ever notice how people react when a lap top is around? Usually at one time or another during an evening everyone will make their way to the laptop at least once, maybe more, to check messages. That's not even commenting on smart phones. People seem held away from in person connection by pseudo conversations with people not present.

    2011 definitely was a hall mark year in terms of information dissemination. This was the year when the internet and social media led to the overhaul of many repressive Middle Eastern governments. These were meteoric events and filled my heart with pride at the possibility of overcoming top -down repression.  Never has there been a time when more information was available at our finger tips. The world is opening up to us and changing because of this accessibility. However, the inquiring mind must at least wonder if the information available is becoming somewhat trite do to the sheer amount? If there are mountains of potential information to sift through then what is the barometer for uncovering whether that information is important? Instant information availability is becoming another entertainment commodity and is having the effect of defocusing our attention...  Ten years ago, I remember siphoning through the same 80 channels again and again when I was bored – like a never ending Sisyphean circle. Now sometimes I find myself siphoning down a Facebook news feed only to do it again minutes later, or checking web sites for content updates that haven’t arrived yet... the phenomena is similar to aimless channel surfing.

    We’ve stepped into the ultimate sound bite information age. Previously whole books were digested to expand ones view of reality now it’s so much more common to collect internet factoids. Information is gathered by checking something quick on Wikipedia, IMDB, or seeing how people’s lives are from their Facebook page. To steal one of cultural theorist Neal Postman’s catch phrases – “Are we amusing ourselves to Death”? When are you focused on doing any one thing when there are quick information fixes that could pull you away from that task? One sound bite of information is in battle against the next. Surely, I’m not alone when I feel that pull? I read fewer books now then I use to and sometimes even have trouble watching a full movie or program without checking something else in the middle. My attention feels subdivided between two to three trivial things and held at arm’s length from the moment. That is what I see as my new type of ADD; an inability to focus on any one strand of information when others are so immediately accessible.