Any of this sound familiar?
(fixed the link...)
The state of being ‘installed’ at a computer or laptop for an extended period of time without purpose, characterized by a blurry, formless anxiety undercut with something hard like desperation. During this time the individual will have several windows open, generally several browser ‘tabs,’ a Microsoft Word document in some state of incompletion, the individual’s own Facebook page as well as that of another randomly-selected individual who may or may not be on the ‘friends’ list, 2-5 Gchat conversations that are no longer immediately active, possibly iTunes and a ‘client’ for Twitter. The individual will switch between the open applications/tabs in a fashion that appears organized but is functionally aimless, will return to reading some kind of ‘blog post’ in one browser tab and become distracted at the third paragraph for the third time before switching to the Gmail inbox and refreshing it again.
The behavior equates to mindlessly refreshing and ‘lozenging’ the same sources of information repeatedly. While performing this behavior the individual feels a sense of numb depersonalization, being calmly and pragmatically aware that they have no identifiable need to be at the computer nor are they gleaning any practical use from it at that moment, and the individual may feel vaguely uncomfortable or ashamed about this awareness in concert with the fact that they continue to perform the idle ‘refreshing’ behavior. They may feel increasingly anxious and needful, similar to the sensation of having an itch that needs scratching or a thirst that needs quenching, all while feeling as though they are calm or slightly bored.
Dear God...
6 comments:
Yikes!
I'd be having a stronger "see, maybe the Amish are right" moment, except I'm too distracted by the open Facebook and blog tabs...
I feel vaguely uncomfortable and ashamed about this.
Yeah, maybe.
But there's cute baby porcupines on the internet.
So... that's good.
And of course, funny Cat vs. Internet cartoons and bizzaro things like creepy wall tentacles.
Since this is the only blog I follow and my husband keeps strongly advising against Facebook because of security issues (Latest: founder of Facebook just had his Facebook page hacked)
I guess I don't have to worry quite yet...
I'm not the sort of person who reads a horoscope and believe that it's a special message for me. But that thing is pretty accurate. Got eight tabs open, one email, one facebook, two blog posts, two internet radio, and two relating to a game a friend of mine called to tell me I really must try.
...and that's me taking a ten minute break from finishing this comment to finish an email. And maybe read a couple paragraphs of a blog post.
Your link isn't working (I believe you copy/pasted the wrong one). Are there any dire predictions I should continue to ignore?
>are there any dire predictions I should continue to ignore?
Wry smile at that Hank, also I can completely identify with the original post, Miss White. All the best with your drawing.
I dunno, the world before the internet was very lonely. - Karen
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