Oct 4, 2010 by Nathan
“Do you ever put that phone down?” “Are you Twittering again?”
These are questions I am familiar with. Usually asked at a dinner where the dialogue is lively, the good food is abundant and the wine is flowing. And like instinct, it beckons. As if some force suddenly animates my body for me, I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. Immediately I’m taking pictures, touchscreen-tapping away, head turned down in a blank un-blinking gaze at the glowing vice in front of my nose. When confronted with these questions – usually after the full minute of silence from the head of hair staring back at my dinner companions – I presume their words enter my ears and eventually reach my brain, where a tiny blip of self-control appears and disappears at the same moment in a microscopic fizzle, the byproduct of which is expelled from my lips in a mumbling guffaw, trying desperately to resemble a somewhat intelligent response. In this thing normal, healthy homosapiens have collectively agreed to refer to as a Human Conversation, my eyes have never blinked, despite the chemical reaction happening directly behind them, and this physiological response has been unable to alter the flow of undoubtedly useful information rocketing from my brain cells to my fingers, translating those bytes of data into thumb spasms, performing their dutiful expression on a bright digital keyboard:
“im gonna eat the crap outta this chicken, yo lolz”
Hit send. Pure poetry.
Satisfied at my soliloquy, I return my phone to its resting place and gaze upon the empty table in front of me, as my guests have certainly left hours ago. In fact, I think the restaurant’s closed.
I have no doubt this is exactly what happens. In moments like these, what force is it that navigates my body, telling me that internet conversations are more important than the actual conversations happening right in front of me? I wondered out loud “could I actually control it? Is it ADD? ADHD? Stupidity?” Clearly all of the above. So after one or two episodes similar to this not-so-exaggerated story, I decided to take a week off to test my discipline. No Twitter. No Facebook. No Phone. No Internet.
Now before you go and shout “BORING!!!” or “SIMPSONS DID IT!”… I know. Of course it is. It’s been done. This is stupid…. but then again it isn’t. It depends on you as a person, no? Some people do multiple things at once, be the effortless multitasker, juggling puppies and swords while reciting War and Peace from memory. On stilts. On a treadmill. (anything else?) Then there’s me: while typing, I get distracted from the letter N by how cool the letter M is. So for me, naturally, trying to carry on a conversation while a.) watching anything on the TV, b.) reading anything on a page, or c.) holding my iPhone, is an attention-loss guarantee. Some people can do it. I can’t. Also, I lack discipline, and I needed to see if this would “cure” my procrastination.
Planning ahead, I decided to test my habit-breaking skills on a Monday to Monday schedule. This would give me a full work week and full weekend to see if my lifestyle was altered. When Monday finally came around, I noticed how drastically it affected my morning routine. Usually the first thing I reach for in the morning is my iPhone to check my news alerts and RSS feeds, and of course say something profound on Facebook or Twitter like “good morning!” or “RT if you hate mondayz lol rofl bbq”. This is usually followed up at work with a more thorough scouring of news and commenting on local blogs and articles, but mostly sharing on the Networks, with my morning coffee. These were the most difficult habits to break: reaching for my phone, and opening web browsers in the morning. I also found I had to turn off notifications on my phone and email, as they informed me of social mentions and news.
So there I went. And believe it or not, I didn’t break out in a cold sweat, shuddering in a corner. By Wednesday, I didn’t even miss it. I found myself frequently hearing something, and thinking “oh man, that needs to go on Twitter!”, but then I remembered my commitment and purposefully forgot it. More than that, I really, really had a hard time refusing to visit my regular news pages. In retrospect, I believe I lost whole minutes devoted to making myself not instinctively switch over to Google Reader. I know. It’s sad. I recognized exactly what I was addicted to: not people… but information. I’m an information junkie. A knowledge junkie. I just gotta know.
Here’s the other thing I noticed about me: at the office I found other ways to screw around and avoid doing things, but I did work at home… just on things I wanted to. I got more done on my backyard in one week than I had in the whole previous month. So I wouldn’t conclude that Twitter & Facebook affect my work performance… because I have a fundamental issue doing other people’s work. I also noticed that I can’t commit to personal goals. When Sunday came around, and I considered breaking my fast early because it was so soon till it ended, a gentle nudge from my wife reaffirmed me… and that bugged me that it was needed. What if no one was there to do that for me? Even though it’s stupid, and not a problem for most people: to me it was and is, and I don’t want it to control me.
Some final thoughts (because I want to keep this short): we live in an amazing time in history; technology has allowed us to involve people in our exchange, even though they’re not physically there. I take my virtual conversations seriously, because usually I’m talking to people I know and love, just like you at the table in front of me. So I don’t feel bad in the least taking a second to share what I feel’s important with my other friends. More often than not, I’m with people who are doing the same thing too, usually with mutual friends. I think it’s pretty damn cool.
But please: slap me across the head if I start to drool, because my brain’s probably come dislodged again.
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As you may have noticed our tagline is “Handing Cincinnati a Megaphone.” During an exchange with a local podcaster on twitter earlier it was drawn to my attention that some clarification is needed.
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