Me and technology are about to have a fall out – again.
I do, of course, realize that I live in a time where technology and its attendant trappings are inevitable. Like just about everyone I know, I have a laptop and smartphone, plus a tablet for good measure. One must be seamlessly mobile, or so advertising and popular culture would lead us to believe.
Don’t get me wrong, I love all the gadgets. They pretty much do everything from phone calls to email to social media, from weather forecasts to word processing, from supplying all your casual photo and video needs, only just stopping short of putting your kids to bed and cleaning your flat – although I’m sure there are apps for that.
Thanks to Wifi and 3G, I should be reachable during any and all waking hours, or so the theory.
So really, the stuff is not only inevitable but omnipresent. It does everything you do and don’t need, and that’s precisely where my problem with it all lies.
I go through phases where it just gets just too frikkin’ much!!!
Because in addition to being permanently connected, I am inundated with endless ‘interesting’ links, snippets and clips, and permanently find myself with at least 20 open tabs of stuff that would be valuable to read or watch… some other time.
Problem is, this other time never comes, but the sight of 20 open tabs saps my energy just thinking about it. And from experience, there’s no sense of satisfaction or accomplishment from spending an hour or two reading all this ‘interesting’ stuff because my brain simply fogs up and forgets about it all as soon as I close each browser window.
On top of all that overwhelm (which is overwhelming IN ADDITION to whatever overwhelm the rest of your life holds), my brain and eyes get really bogged down looking at backlit screens at the end of a long day.
So despite all its undeniable benefits, me and technology need to have a little time out. Not a full on separation heading for divorce. Just a little break. Time to breathe.
I thought about limiting my daily laptop usage to an hour in the evening for a while. Sounds good in theory, but if you want to get anything done (like putting up a blog post!), an hour just doesn’t quite cut the mustard.
So rather than setting tons of rules I am bound to break before I’ve even committed, I decided to go for exposure to technology in short bursts rather than full on immersion. Conscious usage versus default setting.
I’m already notoriously slow at answering emails and getting back to people (largely because I feel bombarded by too much stuff), so I don’t think anyone should notice the difference.
But of course the question I will be pondering is this:
If not constant technology, then what?
And I would love to know how other people feel – does it just all get too much at times, and if so, what do you do about it?
More on my findings in future posts!
Images: mybrainfrazzledonmenopause.wordpress.com, knok89.wordpress.com