The Hsinchu HSR station, which is actually located in Jhubei. Taken on the 13th of January 2007 with a Nikon D200 and a 18-35mm lens. Part of the HSR Hsinchu Series 1.
There are so many things nowadays that try to grab your attention. From adverts to TV, media is everywhere and pervasive. Trying to get a hold about what you are thinking. One of the major problems of today’s information society, is that we are slowly becoming information addicts.
Information Addicts?
For someone who has become accustomed to broadband internet and always getting the information they need at a moments notice, that is hard to grasp. Information addiction happens when you want and need access to information and can not stop yourself from googling something or looking it up on wikipedia.
Since we are not used to having all this information at our fingertips, it becomes a habit to answer all of your mundane questions that you would normally spend some time on, by simply getting them online. For example, have you ever had the name of an artist or a game, or some actor on your lips, but were not able to get it by yourself?
What did you do?
Used google, wikipedia or imdb.com?
Instant information access. Good or bad?
Good because you get an answer immediately to your enquiries.
Bad because we are creating a generation of scatter-brains. People who can not focus their thoughts, and who’s mind constantly wanders on all sorts of pointless questions .
Does it really matter that I was thinking of Spandau Ballet and the song True and that I could not find the name of the band, until I really thought hard about the song and my mom?
My mom liked Spandau Ballet.
Does it matter that the name of the strategy game that I liked on my gamecube was Pikmin and that I got hooked because of my friend Yves?
I remembered again by myself, without using online help.
This all came to focus when I disconnected my ADSL line and got a high speed cable line. I spent 3 weeks without any internet last summer. It was hard, but it helped me think about things.
I remember when I consulted a dictionary before; it was a French dictionary called Le Robert. It was great. I really liked it a lot. I used to read 2 pages of it every day and note down the interesting words to use in my stories. Thanks to this, I discovered words like “abscon” and others. I used to have this little notebook with my in which I wrote interesting things. This started in the beginning of my twenties.
Yoga and controlling your thoughts and mind are all very important. We all need time to decompress and think without any inputs.
Mindlessly navigating the web for information does not solve anything.
Counterpoint
The access that we have to information nowadays will completely revolutionize our society. With this information and the way that it is constantly expanding, we will be creating smart programs and applications that will make a lot of our lives easier.
Search agents will scour the net to find the information we need. The web will actually become a technological singularity in our close future.
Through the constant expansion of the web, we will see virtual words emerge thanks to the MMORGs persistent worlds and the ever expanding information universe. Netrunning will not be a thing of the far future, but will become reality in the next 20 years. Some people will live their lives online, forsaking the material world forever.
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Relevant Posts
This post is part of a series on the Dangers of The Internet.
memoirs on a rainy day 
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