Inpursuitof

I found a picture of someone online today that I’ve never met, but whom I needed to know the face of. A couple of carefully chosen keywords in my browser and bam, there it was. The frustrating thing was the lack of other available data. That was when I realised quite how much we’ve come to expect from the internet, how much information is readily available. Not just readily available, but viciously thrown in your face.

There is a fury of information for your little head to digest every minute. We’re constantly connected to up-to-the-second information about our friends, our idols and our warzones. You can check the internet on the train, on a plane and on the toilet. Right now I’m sitting next to someone simultaneously watching the television, surfing the internet and texting a friend.

It was proven recently that the brain is unable to truly multitask when it comes to incoming information, it is simply flicking from one source to the other freakishly quickly. I bet you’re at work (because this is the sort of thing you only waste somebody else’s time on) so you’re fielding unimportant emails, surfing at least one shopping site and possibly looking at the house you’d buy if you earnt another 5 grand a year. We had a debate the other day about kids and iPhones. It might improve their fine motor skills, but are you filing down their attention spans before their brains are fully formed? How are kids used to 5 billion exciting things happening every 10 minutes ever going to learn to read, let alone enjoy a book?

Sometimes it seems like there’s so much to know it’s worth not knowing anything at all. A constant feed of news is rarely uplifting. Perhaps forewarned is not forearmed. Perhaps there is such a thing as too much information. Perhaps we should log off for a little while and find out that the world doesn’t stop turning.

1) 3 massive packets of hastily purchased crisps

2) My fellow passenger as we laughed at the Snoring Man two seats down

3) Our EA, who left today