Hit
What’s Alcohol to the high of a notification,
What’s narcotics to the calm of a movie,
What’s therapy to the medicine of a binge watch,
What is a hit, bigger than internet can be.
Attention economy might not be the most apparent cash flow but it is draining my energy account and driving my sleep resources to bankruptcy. Productivity is a dream today and focus a myth as old as time. The screen in the car showing the GPS destination attracts more of my attention than the airplane trail in the sky out the window. And tracking that airplane is a childhood tradition. Needless to say, I’m addicted. If I may be that bold, we are addicted.
You know it’s a catch 22 when you are addicted to the source of mankind’s progress, technology. It really puts things into perspective. If I were to wean myself off my phone…. what would I do when in trouble without the ability to call someone? If I trade my laptop for a book, what do I do when the book is over? The laptop had a thousand more. If I disconnect the cable to the TV or log out of my Insta account, how will I answer the GK questions in my entrance exams? They are worth 40% and the newspapers to my house are in Gujarati. Suffice to say, that will take me hours to read. If giving up my addiction throws me back a few steps in life and evolution, is it a worthy option? (sigh)….. the Google definition of a Catch 22, and the sad part is I wouldn’t know the meaning of catch 22 without Google.
However, all this would only be a problem assuming I can rid myself of this addiction. After all, there is no Alcoholic Anonymous for the Internet! In fact talking to my friends is the primary time I spend online. I know chatting was made possible to save time, but who, in the entire world, has saved time chatting with friends or relatives? Absolutely no one.
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In my psychology class, I recently studied about the attention economy. When I learnt that people earn wages to spend hours online making algorithms, features and designs, to make us spend hours online…… I WAS MORTALLY OFFENDED. Why are you competing with my sleep? Instead, You should go to sleep ! or even better, Find A DIFFERENT JOB. Wasn’t it enough that I am willingly leaking my private information to multinational corporates called media companies, now I am also allowing the same companies to steal my attention! These billionaires are literally causing me an addiction worse than chewing gum. This should be a crime. If it isn't I should at least get a cut of their income!
I can throw all the tantrums I want, but the truth of the hour is we let these companies in. Every time we increase the dimensions of our TV screen or reduce its thickness, we let them in. With every new model of the iphone bought, we let them in. With every hour of screen time in a day allowed, we let them in. With every 2 year old watching youtube videos to digest whatever he or she is eating, we let them in. AI may be the most beneficial boon to the world, but to me, it looks like just another thing to get addicted to. Now what?
Books may have been Man’s best friend,
Now it’s the Kindle,
And I may love to bake in my free time,
But recipes online are still the source of the hobby,
Maybe I’m a prodigy about to crack the cure of cancer,
I bet dollars, that, blue block specs on my nose, will be.
However, the law of nature is balance,
No addiction was cured in a day,
Ten to one may sound impossible right now,
But gradually, adaptation is human nature,
Ten, nine, eight, seven, and so on,
Evolution is key, even to the human stature.
I spent an hour on this blog, around five more on my screen time today.
But I know it will be less tomorrow because baby steps go a long way.
Now in order to make this poem somewhat true and save myself from being a hypocrite, I must log off. Bye!
Love, Ri
