Is there life after internet?
In the Read Write Web blog, Jolie O’Dell struck a defensive nerve in her daring post “Should Tech Get a Turn-Off?” In her post, she confronts the geeky world of internet addiction and wonders if the seductive lure of the internet makes it much too easy to go missing from reality without being aware of it. Is she right? Just ask my husband and family, who claim they only know the back of my head while I’m sitting at my computer screen. She lands a sharp and jangling bullseye.
She challenges us to an intervention of sorts, She suggests we should disconnect more regularly and revisit the real world. This echoes my own recent worries — that the “rabbit hole” magical fantasyland of the internet promotes isolation and lures regular users like me away from family and activities in an endless pursuit to nowhere.
I’m not saying that the Internet makes you stupid. I am saying that, if left to run wild across the vast territories of the Web, your mind can turn into a laboratory hamster, frantically pulling levers and running in wheels while his environment remains essentially static and his motivations essentially artificial. –Jolie O’Dell
It’s easy to see why the internet is so pervasive and tempting. Not long after reading O’Dell’s blog, I ran across the graphic below in my Google Reader. The graphic is revealing but not surprising, exposing the prevalence of the internet in all its glorious ubiquity. Me? I am a loyal hamster running on that crazy wheel.
The irony of discovering this graphic on the same day that I read O’Dell’s post is not lost on me. Yeah, it’s definitely time to disconnect more often. Like any wonderland, the internet rabbit hole is a curious lure, but trips there are convoluted, deep and connected to a worldwide network of endless tunnels. It’s the type of maze that has no exit.
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Posted on January 9th, 2010 by Sharon Elin
Filed under: Uncategorized
