Digital Hamster Wheel

Must Tweet! Must Tweet! Must Tweet!

No, I’m not talking about a new toy for your virtual pet. I’m talking about things like email, RSS feeds, Twitter and searches. It’s addictive, and apparently it hurts your attention span and sort of melts your brain. An article in Slate magazine on the subject nails it:

Actually all our electronic communication devices—e-mail, Facebook feeds, texts, Twitter—are feeding the same drive as our searches. Since we’re restless, easily bored creatures, our gadgets give us in abundance qualities the seeking/wanting system finds particularly exciting. Novelty is one. [Washington State University neuroscientist Jaak] Panksepp says the dopamine system is activated by finding something unexpected or by the anticipation of something new. If the rewards come unpredictably—as e-mail, texts, updates do—we get even more carried away. No wonder we call it a “CrackBerry.”

I could have told them that. In my eight months of unemployment, I’ve spent far too much time online and too little time getting out and about and interacting face-to-face with other humans. It’s had a negative effect on my attention span and ability to think creatively. For example, I wanted to improve my web design skills and redesign my old fanfiction website to repurpose it for original fiction, which I naturally planned to write. I accomplished neither of these things. Instead, after staring at a blank Word document for a few uninspired minutes, I would turn to my RSS feeds and get distracted for hours. Whereas I used to be able to write for hours on end, often taking up an entire weekend with it, now I can barely get out a blog post (and the posts I write are dissatisfying). The same thing would happen when I tried to sit through online training modules in an effort to learn web design languages. I’d start one and next thing I’d know I’d be playing Mahjong Titans or reading feeds.

The feeling in my mind when I try to write is like sleepwalking through waist-deep mud in a thick fog. I sometimes think my sleeping mind does a better job of thinking and being creative than my waking mind, if my vivid dreams and nightmares are any indication. Even caffeine doesn’t help. Part of the problem could be the clinical depression I’ve fought off and on for most of my life. It could have something to do with my periodic anemia (I take ferrus sulfate for it), or perhaps my blood pressure or thyroid issues (I take meds for those, too). Maybe I sleep too much or too little. Or maybe it’s all of the available distractions added to the boredom of not having a job to go to.

Something else the Slate article pointed out sent up a flag with me:

Ever find yourself sitting down at the computer just for a second to find out what other movie you saw that actress in, only to look up and realize the search has led to an hour of Googling? Thank dopamine. Our internal sense of time is believed to be controlled by the dopamine system. People with hyperactivity disorder have a shortage of dopamine in their brains, which a recent study suggests may be at the root of the problem. For them even small stretches of time seem to drag. An article by Nicholas Carr in the Atlantic last year, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” speculates that our constant Internet scrolling is remodeling our brains to make it nearly impossible for us to give sustained attention to a long piece of writing. Like the lab rats, we keep hitting “enter” to get our next fix.

That’s another problem I notice I’m having–in fact, I’ve had it most of my life: A distorted sense of time. However, I’m more like the Googler described above, than the person suffering from hyperactivity. Time tends to get by me before I realize it. Conversely, my attention span is shorter. Last night, I actually spent three hours reading a book, something I used to do all the time (Harry Potter in a day, anyone?) Yet, I’ve had that library book in my possession for a month and a half without really digging into it. It’s not a boring book–quite the opposite, in fact–it’s just that I couldn’t seem to read more than a few sentences without my attention wandering. I was interested in what was happening in the story, but found myself wanting to skip to the end of each chapter to find out how it came out. I never used to do that. I was meaning to spend my afternoon reading that book, but what am I doing instead? Blogging, reading feeds, and tweeting. *sigh*

The same thing happens to me when reading articles online. Lately I want my information in small doses, which is a change from my pre-unemployment habit. And yet, now that I’m thinking about it, the trend began when I first started using RSS feeds two years ago. I’m horribly addicted to them, usually only reading the “above the fold” text and rarely clicking through to read the rest. I’m deeply disturbed by this trend.

Clearly I’m incorrigible because I signed up for a Twitter account this week. So far I’ve resisted it’s siren call to tweet every little thing I’m doing, every five minutes, but I do find I keep refreshing it to see what the people I’m following are tweeting about. I eagerly await tweets from my favorite actors, writers, artists, astronomers, pundits, politicians, magazines, and friends. I resisted Twitter for more than a year. Why did I give in? I have friends on Twitter, but I think what really pushed me over the edge was the sales pitch I got in a training class about social media this week. The focus was on using social media tools like Twitter to network while looking for a job. I’m fascinated by the many ways digital media can be used to communicate, market, sell and inform, so the inventive ways people use Twitter enticed me to try it for myself. Now I’m obsessed with finding interesting Twitterers. I am still rebelling against getting it on my cell phone, though I do have unlimited texting on my calling plan. Must…be…strong.

So, now that I’m about to be employed again and will have far less time on my hands, will I be able to ration my social media time and focus on writing when I do have spare time? I hope so. All this will take is some good old fashioned self-discipline and a sufficiently succulent carrot to reward me for achieving my goals! Now, please excuse my while I go find that carrot. And check my Twitter feed.

Read the full Slate article, here