The Internet Trap

There is something about the internet that can just suck me in for hours and hours. For some reason, I can just find myself repeatedly clicking the "stumble" button or constantly coming back to the home page of my favorite video game news site. There's a collection of feeds at the top of my browser that I hover over every few minutes in hopes that one of my sites has been updated. When I'm on the the internet, my brain is starving to be fed.

This is something that most popular websites take advantage of very well. Facebook has its "Notifications" button, Youtube has its subscriptions, and I'm sure Twitter and Tumblr have something similar (although I  wouldn't know myself). A friend of mine often refers to her Blackberry's notification as the "Red Light of Love." There's an addictive quality to this, as the brain wants stimulation from the internet. This can be in the form of a funny video, a friend's status update, or a looping animation with funny music in the background. Whatever it is, the internet makes it ever so easy to find.

The problem with this is that while the internet holds a universe of information and entertainment, much of what it provides is incredibly shallow. I often walk away from my computer realizing that in the hours I spent on it, I achieved practically nothing. Sure, whatever was on screen kept me entertained, but much of it was meaningless. When you watch a movie or read a book for two hours, you remember what it was you've watched/read. Personally, I've read an embarrassing number of FMLs, yet I can only think of about ten of them right now.

That fact alone has inspired in me a determination to make some changes. There are deep and purposeful things to be found on the internet *wink wink*, they're just harder to take in than their instant-gratification counterparts. I could never part from my internet, but I can certainly begin changing the way I use it.

A big chunk of credit goes to Nicholas Carr's The Shallows, which is what got me really interested in all of this.