Oh Internet, how I love you. You have made it so easy for me to meet like minded people, make friends, discover a support group. I’ve also enjoyed an endless stream of cat photos, fails, and the quiet brilliance that is PostSecret. I’ve reconnected with friends and family, googled everything in existence, and have recently connected you to my Foxtel and Apple TV.
Let’s not get started on YouTube.
On the flipside, I feel like I’m letting this ruin my brain. I literally cannot focus long enough to read a chapter in an actual book, with pages and ink. I facebook while I’m working the horses, that’s if I get out there in the first place. By the time I’ve written this, I probably will have had five facebook conversations and checked my newsfeed countless times, lest I miss some self help article that I will never put into actual practice, or the daily musings of a boy I kissed on the last day of Yr 9, and never saw again.
The times when I’ve felt the most ‘whole’ have never been when I’ve been sitting in front of my laptop, various tabs open to social networking sites. They’ve been when I was 18 and ran every day even though I’d always hated it. When I was 15 and would ride exercise work on racehorses just trot trot trot for kilometres on end and they find their stride and you find yours and sometimes it starts to feel like magic. Dare I say it, one of the first times I smoked weed with an ex and we laid in his Dad’s recording room with carpet all up the walls and Fleetwood Mac on the record player and we felt every instrument.
Now I don’t even watch a fucking movie without my iPhone. I can’t follow a teen TV series’ storyline. It’s getting ridiculous. I’m nearly 30 and have wasted so many opportunities, spent so much time just killing boredom when I could have been learning or writing or being productive or I don’t know, having conversations and focusing on who I’m with or actually tasting what I’m absentmindedly cramming into my mouth.
I’m at the point where I’m actually going to start giving myself a schedule to tell me what I should actually be filling time with. This doesn’t fit in with my personality at all, but yeah. I’m sick of being so passive. I’m sick of saying I ‘don’t have time’ to finish my novel, ride my horse, paint my room, decorate my soul.
Can anyone relate?
Ashx
Absolutely can relate. I am not as bad now, but lost a couple years this way. ..
Feel like sharing how you got over it? Sheer willpower or something more? 🙂
I can relate too. It’s hard finding that balance, especially if you’ve become overwhelmed with a health issue and sort of separated yourself off. Online can be the only way of feeling connected.
Sometimes I make it super difficult to get to my phone or get online if I’m having a super lazy day – just so I won’t be tempted!
It is hard, and you’re right – my reliance on technology started with my having health issues and not being able to get out and do much, and feeling disconnected from my old irl friends.
Oh, how I relate!!!
Hahaha I think a lot of people do!
For me it was a Facebook obsession. Had to quit cold turkey. It’s been years since I logged in and it’s great.
Jeez, I wish I had your strength.
It’s truly amazing how being connected to the world can provide so many opportunities and at the same time limit the life right in front of us. Walking with our heads down, missing out on the story a random stranger has to share, or enjoying the beauty of our normal commutes. Likewise, I find myself at the perils of technology… Always attempting to find that ever-so-hard balance of connection vs. disconnection. Hopefully, I will learn how to coordinate this new era of phones, laptops, and Internet. Until then, if you learn some good ol’ tips… Be sure to share. 🙂
You said what I was trying to say, with so much eloquence 🙂 Thankyou
When you take a step back and look at things from 40,000 feet — you realize that most of what you’re doing is completely pointless anyway. Facebook, TV, Movies, phone. It doesn’t matter. All of it is worthless.
Get on a horse, or a boat, or a plane.
Do something nice with the people you love.
They might not be around much longer.
If you don’t regret staring at a screen enough to stop right now, maybe you will then.
Thanks for the dose of reality! Well said.
It sounds like you’re addicted. Time to limit yourself. I’ve read that this is a true phenomenon.
It is, seriously. I’ve taken a breather and once I got past the OMG must check stage, I swear I could think more clearly.