Internet Ban Captain's Log: Entry 1

WANT. via Elena Santangelo's blog

My attempt last night at enforcing my new "One Hour a Day With No Internet" rule resulted in me falling asleep on top of my book. Note to self: When there are not screens on which to focus tired, weary eyes, sleep comes faster. The daily hour should thus not take place just before bed, in a darkened room, after a long day, as I lay on my stomach in my exceedingly comfortable bed.

It's a learning process, folks.

A Self-Enforced Internet Ban

via SoxFirst

The Internet is an invention that both exponentially economized productivity and also made productivity secondary. The siren call of Facebook,  the gravitational pull of Blogger, the thousands of Groupon-type emails in my inbox, just begging to be clicked and web-window-shopped. It's damn near inconceivable to attempt tackling a to-do list. The Internet Gods mock your to-do list. They laugh at your futile peasant ways. You are not getting anything done, and you know it.

This is a problem for me, this distraction. So I went to a coffee shop tonight to get some writing done, out of the reach of wi-fi. Well, turns out the place did have wi-fi, but I just logged in real quick, to check my email. No big deal, barely even counts. I disconnected, sipped my latte, opened a new Word doc, and stared at it. Turned the Internet back on and posted a quick blog post. Disconnected again. Stared some more. Started typing.

Lo and behold, I accomplished some writing. I set a goal to write five pages. I wrote two paragraphs, then the coffee shop closed. I went home and extended it to a full page. A page I don't hate. In fact, it might be pretty good, possibly. We'll see.

I'm making a resolution to turn off the Internet for an hour a day. I'm delaying sleep to record this resolution, which means I'm taking it very seriously, because I take sleep very seriously. The Internet is a fickle mistress, and I estimate the physical action of turning off the wi-fi connection will be therapeutic. I'll create a space dedicated to offline personal literacy in an attempt to become more fluent and articulate.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

Hi, I'm a Facebook Addict

I have the day off work today. I'm not playing hookie -- I'm attending a leadership symposium this afternoon and all day tomorrow, so I'll be dressed up in a business suit soon, soaking in some wisdom and networking. In fact, I should make this brief. I got places to be.

So I noticed in college that Facebook was starting to overtake my life when I was checking Facebook before I checked my email in the morning. I wanted to see who had written on my wall and who had tagged me in pictures or gotten engaged or (God forbid) poked me. I still sort of do that, though it's a less high-pitched, urgent social need, more of a low rumbling of interest.

Today, as I said, I have the day off work, so it's a day for me to get a good night's sleep, enjoy a leisurely morning, do whatever I want before I have to get ready to leave. (Ah, the life of a 20-something. I'll appreciate it while I'm not responsible for other peoples' well-being or breakfast preparation.) And what's one of the first things I do, besides put in contacts and say hello to the cat? I check Facebook.

It's my daily link to many of my friends, particularly the ones who are flung around the country. And my family too: my parents are on Facebook, my grandparents are on Facebook, my little cousins all the way down to elementary school are on Facebook. It's news central.

I didn't take to Google+. Or I suppose I haven't yet, because I'm otherwise occupied when it comes to social media. And until Facebook does a redesign that actually kills puppies as it inconveniently reorganizes your news feed, I will continue to invest some of my socializing in it. Of course, one of my favorite Facebook applications is Events -- because it actually gets all these friends in the same room once in awhile. Social media is great, but actual socializing is better.

You are a human hyperlink

via LunaMetrics

 
Communication is a mainstay of our species' civilization. In other words, human interaction is a cornerstone of being human. As we've evolved from grunts and stone tablets to Skype and iPads, the changes in medium have affected not only how we communicate, but how we behave, date, stalk, react to current events. Yesterday the United States government executed Troy Davis, and Twitter went absolutely apeshit. This week Facebook launched a redesign intended to push the free social media service to a new level of central Internet hub. (People also went apeshit over that, but that's just whining.) If you're a young, smart, hip American, you may consider moving to Silicon Valley to make your fortune instead of New York or LA or Chicago. Times, they are a-changin'.

But the real thing that spurred me to finally start this blog -- my fourth, after my personal writing blog, an occasionally not-defunct music blog, and a sporadic but fun political drinking blog -- was this article in the New York Times. We could claim it snuck up on us, but we could have guessed that smartphone technology and scanning barcodes off advertisements was too good a partnership for marketing professionals to ignore. We've actually realized some of the dreams (and fears) of futuristic sci-fi: We're developing technology to allow us to digitize each individual and keep their files and records, websites and Tumblr feeds together. As the article's author, New York Times reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom, succinctly summed up, "In other words: you've become a human hyperlink."

As a writer and thus someone who a lot of time thinking about the smallest details of efficiency, of comma placement and tone, this concept fascinates me. I'm 24 years old. I had an email address by the time I turned 10. As a preteen I produced an email webzine for similarly aged girls. I've had a Facebook profile since the social media dawn of time in 2005. It's more than circumstance: This is the environment in which my generation is living and learning and communicating. How have these developments altered society? How has social media affected our love lives, our professional networks, our motivation to exercise or eat or spend the day surfing either the ocean or the Internet? Technology envelops every aspect of our daily lives; is it for the better? the worse? does it matter? Time will tell.

In the meantime, we can gab about it. And behold! The blogosphere has thus found its purpose.