After six to eight hours of network deprivation — also known as sleep — people are increasingly waking up and lunging for cellphones and laptops, sometimes even before swinging their legs to the floor and tending to more biologically urgent activities. “It used to be you woke up, went to the bathroom, maybe brushed your teeth and picked up the newspaper,” said Naomi S. Baron, a professor of linguistics at American University, who has written about technology’s push into everyday life. “But what we do first now has changed dramatically. I’ll be the first to admit: the first thing I do is check my e-mail.” —New York Times
Me too. So what? Morning is nothing more than that haze between picking sleep boogers and stumbling out the door without hurting oneself. (And breakfast food is boring — that’s right, I said it.)
I’m more concerned with late night browsing habits. Sooner or later I inevitably burn out on working, but it never occurs to me to peel my fingers off the trackpad. And I do believe that it qualifies as an addiction now. The relentless browsing — one more site, one more site, something out there has to be interesting, a tender little jolt to the pleasure center — drug users call it chasing the dragon. Albeit a puny one.
I think this is related to my drop-off in reading. For a couple years I’ve been blaming it on my favorite novelists disappearing. Perhaps so, but there’s a mess of classics that I haven’t got to yet.
No more. When the work stops, so does the browsing. The only catch is distinguishing a browsing break from quitting for the night.
