Internet Addiction

Today is like most days except it's Monday, and it's Presidents' Day. It also marks the melting of our weekend snowfall. I notice all the snow is gone in the yard but a few tiny spots here and there, sort of like a pimple on the face of the earth.

My day begins with removing my mask and CPAP paraphernalia for the sleep apnea. I'm still not sure about this new bed partner that is supposed to help me sleep better. Much as I hate to admit it after starting the coffee in the kitchen, I return to bed to check my E-mail, Facebook and Twitter as well as the weather. The coffee's ready so I pour myself a cup of coffee in my new pink cup I got on sale at San Francisco Coffee Shop. I get attached to cups, and this one has been the cup of the month for several weeks.

So now we're ready for serious reading as my morning moves along. I begin with a few pieces in the New York Times, as well as more local news on Yahoo. If it weren't a holiday and I were teaching, this step would be omitted for getting dressed and out the door. In between news items I feed the dog and water the plants. These are my housemates--thirty plants and one wheaten terrier.

With every intention of reading only a few more minutes, I instead check my E-mail again as I get a beep on my iPhone. So far today I've had emails from Macy's, Overstock, Staples, Cook.com, and several other pieces of junk mail. It wasn't really worth the interruption except for my sister's short E-mail to let me know she got my E-mail telling her the article she sent me yesterday about cellphones blowing up if you talk to someone while the phone is recharging was listed as an urban legend on Snopes.com. I guess I really should change my iPhone settings it won't beep when I get Facebook updates or E-mails.

However, this interruption reminds me I'm hungry; thus I eat a banana while I make myself a bowl of oatmeal and pour another cup of coffee. I heard the other day on Dr. Oz that if you take your multivitamin after a meal, it is more effective in making you alert. I don't know that I saw any difference taking the multivitamin, calcium and Vitamin C after eating the oatmeal and berries. I returned to my iPhone to read some more; after all, it is a holiday, and who cares if I'm still in my nightgown. By now I've been up a couple of hours with an early start on a holiday at about 7:00 am.
*********************
I'm continuing this post after a long break looking for an essay I read this morning about how such things as getting E-mails are such a distraction from concentration and trying not to check E-mails are also a distraction. It was an excellent article, but I didn't bookmark it because I felt I'd have no problem finding it again in my history on the iPhone. After checking the New York Times and other news groups I'd read this morning, I never found it. I did find another very good article, however, on the same subject which is the reason I started writing this post today. The latest article, in case you'd rather read it than what I'm writing is: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/200910/easily-distracted-why-its-hard-focus-and-what-do-about-it.

Actually I suggest you definitely read it also, but do not read it until after you read my post today. I wouldn't want you to lose your focus. The first article I read got me to thinking about the interruption in focus when you stop to check your E-mail, Facebook, or Twitter. (I do all three, by the way.) It was more a first person piece the woman had written talking about how much time she loses by stopping to answer her E-mail or phone, and how much time she loses by trying not to stop and answer anything.

By the time I read the article this morning, I had settled into an Internet splurge so to speak or in terms of food I guess you would call it a binge. Now I did not consider it thus as I have no demands on my time today, and I like to read. But with the Internet, sometimes it's hard to remember where I read what, and I'm always shifting from one thing to another. For example, did you stop in the middle of this post to read the Psychology Today article. That's the kind of thing I often do. I'm reading along, and there's a link to something else so I'll read it too. I know one site I read the entire article, liked it; then I read multiple posts on the same site only to find out the person's only experience at "mind over matter" in reference to pain was her own experience and a few websites she quoted. Then I noticed she had a consulting fee for so much a minute if you wanted help with controlling your pain threshold.

So before I go any further, there are no fees, and I'm giving no advice on Internet addiction or lack of focus created by interruptions from E-mail, etc. I'm just telling a story of my morning. Then if you can relate to this, you can discuss it with your shrink, your spouse, or whomever it is you talk to about personal things. Unfortunately, or fortunately I might say, the history of my morning is on my iPhone (with exception of the one article I'm trying to find).

In order to be more concise I'm not going to list everything in my history for today, but suffice it to say there must be over 100 entries. I started with a Google search for Bing as I thought I'd rather try a different search engine than Google. That took several tries as for some reason Google didn't want me to find Bing. After a few tries of looking for a friend online, about ten searches, I read an article on CNN about "Happy (former) Presidents Day" that posted 2/14. I read a few things on Fox, the New York Times, local news on Channel 11 (my converter box for my TV is broken), such as which Atlanta stores have sales. Gee whiz, is there a store in Atlanta that doesn't have a sale on President's Day? However, I definitely need to get to Filene's Basement with up to 90% off of their winter inventory

Somewhere in here this morning I have fed the dog and eaten breakfast, but I have not dressed. I decide to check out eDiets Glycemic Index online and find out which diets are legitimate as I am debating on trying the Southbeach Diet again as I sit here and drink another cup of coffee and surf the Internet. Finally, I'm back to searching for the friend another ten or twenty places. I am quite a researcher you know, even in the day before the Internet and Google. This goes on a while, and I check Facebook and Twitter again. I've had some E-mails, all junk except a note from my sister and the senior exemption for my car tag. I did stop long enough from my surfing spree to print the exemption, sign it, and put it in the envelope to mail when it's no longer a holiday. I also read my sister's E-mail. She wrote of three major car pileups on the Interstate today in Kansas City. One was a 50 car pile up, another 30 car pile up, and another 15 car pile up. She said that earlier today there was such a blizzard she couldn't see the houses behind her house. I then went back to googling this friend. I could just ask the friend, but it's so much more intellectually stimulating to search for the person like he were a fugitive.

I must stop this I tell myself. So I get dressed and eat lunch, do one or two chores such as put the recycling in the bin, heat up my leftover homemade spinach soup to which I now add leftover broccoli and cabbage. What a great soup! I must write down what I did; it's so delicious. I'm all dressed, and I could go to the gym to exercise, but instead I check my E-mail, and next thing you know, I have a message on my screen from Facebook, "So and so commented on your picture." Why any rational person would want to see what they said, besides it's President's Day, and I don't have to be anywhere I again remind myself.

I finish this checking Facebook and decide while I'm looking for people maybe I should see if my ex-husband has any remarkable new things in a Google search. That's good for about fifteen more searches including reading his updated vitae. I do ask myself why I'm doing this? I realize it is time to stop when I start thinking how many things on the vitae happened before we divorced. So I do the next logical thing, I decide to Google my own self. That took about twenty-five more searches as some of these things I decided I better read and see what they're saying. Just why for example am I listed in The Hollywood Reporter , and why is there a link in Chinese to my name. "Wait a minute," I say to myself. "I need to have my name removed from Google. It looks like I'm famous; but for goodness sake, I'm just a teacher My blog is almost anonymous as it doesn't even have my last name.

You can see why I'm beginning to question some of the stuff I read about in the first article about E-mail and Internet interruptions. I tell myself I have no interruptions except to stop surfing the net and eat or feed the dog or water the plants. So it's no problem for me or else I'm in denial. Finally after all this swimming in the cyberocean without a life raft, I decide maybe I should do what I had planned to do in the first place today and write. So I go to my blog, The White Buffalo Bonanza, and I begin writing about Internet addiction. It has crossed my mind this morning that maybe I might have this disease. However, before I can continue writing, I need to go back to the Internet and look again for the first article to reread it. In the meantime I read the Psychology Today article and that brings us to the present where I started writing about my day.

I still don't know what to think about Internet addiction, but I have had an enlightened moment about teaching. There are too many interruptions in the school for kids to focus. The last thing they need is the Internet in the classroom. For them it's like having their iPhone in hand, and it's constantly calling them. Elementary kids always want to finish something quickly so they can go play games online. I then recalled a high school student I tutored who insisted on listening to music on his Ipod while he did his assignments. His mother agreed that he definitely focused better when he was listening to music. At the time I wondered if this was a new learning strategy that I had missed. I think I may print out the article and keep in my notebook for the next time a student wants to tell me how good he is at multitasking or listening to music while working algebra problems.

In closing I must say I have not looked at my E-mail, Facebook or Twitter since I resumed writing after I typed the Psychology Today link and began the fifth paragraph. Well, that's almost true, I did look back at today's history on my iPhone to refresh my memory. I'm feeling a little guilty because I think the history was much longer in reality than what I've written about, but the iPhone kept cutting off while I was counting to see the number of searches.

Hopefully, while the encyclopedia of mental disorders is being revised that as they drop Asberger's Syndrome and the diagnosis of bi-polar disorder for children, they will include "Internet Addiction" and a section on Facebook, Twitter, and E-mail. I think one time when they brought it up-to-date, they changed "Retarded" to "Mentally Challenged." The classification I learned in college psychology no longer applied, such as idiots, imbeciles, and morons. I suggest they simplify addiction to everything. I can get addicted to a pencil or my cup as noted in the beginning of my post about my pink cup. Besides another twenty years, Multitasking may be classified as genius and addiction as commitment.

****************
P.S. Maybe I will post this as is, after spellcheck, and then come back for serious editing later, or maybe not. It's a journal, after all!!!! Just for the record, I checked my E-mail for the first time since I resumed writing on my blog today. I have another E-mail from my sister about the weather that says there is now snow in all fifty states including Hawaii. I'm still opening two more E-mails on my other account. One is from my university, "Baylor Proud Newsflash: Starr named Baylor's 14th President (Feb. 15, 2010)." Oh my gosh I am going to be very sick right now. I almost deleted it without opening it, and I would have missed learning that Ken Starr, the Ken Starr, is the new President of Baylor University. I may have to stop right now and read this. The other Email from my cousin about a senior eye exam with print too small for me to read will have to wait till after I finish reading Baylor's E-mail. So much for writing today. Now you know if I had checked my last batch of E-mails earlier, this post might never been written. I am in a totally different place learning that my Alma mater has a new president on Presidents' Day, of all things. That will be my next post. Stay tuned.