Focus - Leo Babauta [2]
This is unprecedented, and it's alarming.
We've come into this Age without being aware that it was happening, or realizing its consequences. Sure, we knew that the Internet was proliferating, and we were excited about that. We knew that mobile devices were becoming more and more ubiquitous, and maybe some people harrumphed and others welcomed the connectivity. But while the opportunities offered by this online world are a good thing, the constant distractions, the increasingly urgent pull on our attention, the stress of multitasking at an ever-finer granular level, the erosion of our free time and our ability to live with a modicum of peace... perhaps we didn't realize how much this would change our lives.
Maybe some did. And maybe many still don't realize it.
I think, with so many things asking for our attention, it's time we paid attention to this.
it's an addiction
There's instant positive feedback to such constant activities as checking email, surfing the web, checking social networks such as blogs, forums, Twitter and Facebook. That's why it's so easy to become addicted to being connected and distracted.
Other addictive activities, such as doing drugs or eating junk food, have the same kind of instant positive feedback -- you do the activity, and right away, you're rewarded with something pleasurable but don't feel the negative consequences until much later. Checking email, or any similar online activity, has that addictive quality of instant positive feedback and delayed negative feedback.
You check your email and hey! A new email from a friend! You get a positive feeling, perhaps a validation of your self-worth, when you receive a new email. It feels good to get a message from someone. And thus the instant positive feedback rewards you checking email, more and more frequently, until the addiction is solidly ingrained.
Now, you might later get tired of answering all your email, because it's overwhelming and difficult to keep up with. But usually by then, you're addicted and can't stop checking. And usually the checking of the email has positive reward (a good feeling) but it's the activity of answering all the emails that isn't as fun.
We'll explore how we can stop this addiction later, in the chapter "the beauty of disconnection".
it's a new lifestyle
Being connected, getting information all the time, having constant distractions... it has all become a part of our lives.
Computers, at one time, were a small part of our lives -- perhaps we used them at work, but in the car and on the train, and usually at home and when we're out doing other things, we were disconnected. Even at work, our computers had limited capabilities -- we could only do certain things with desktop applications, and while solitaire is definitely addicting, it doesn't take up your entire life.
Not so anymore.
Computers are taking over our lives. And while I'm as pro-technology as the next guy (more so in many cases), I also think we need to consider the consequences of this new lifestyle.
Because we've created a new lifestyle very rapidly, and I'm not sure we're prepared for it. We don't have new strategies for dealing with being connected most of the time, we don't have new cultural norms, nor have we figured out if this is the best way to live life. We've been plunged into it, before we could develop a system for handling it.
it's an expectation
Let's say you woke up one day and decided you no longer wanted to participate in the Age of Distraction in some way... could you just drop out?
Well, you could, but you'd be up against an entire culture that expects you to participate.
A good example was when I recently announced that I was