Internet!

When you finally manage to carve some free time out of your busy life, is there one activity you think you deserve? Something you feel compelled to do, and use to measure your leisure? Maybe you look forward to it as a reward for a tiring day. For some people, the activity is shopping and spending hard-earned money. For others, it's a night out at the bar. Others prefer television. I'm exactly the same, but my activity is reading the internet.

When I have a moment void of immediate responsibility, I feel like I'm putting it to waste if I'm not on the internet. Doing anything else would be to deny myself what I'm owed. Catching up on sleep is an inferior option. Working on a long-term project is overly anxious, and I can procrastinate with confidence and pride. Better make it internet.

The basis of my habit is the promise of novelty and the permanence of my interaction with the news. In real life, it's two steps forward and one step back when things fall on inattentive ears or slip from memory. On the internet, I have supreme traction, and it's always full speed ahead. Topics become subtle and refined, and the people discussing them become experts. Anybody can be a respected analyst at the forefront of their field. If it's a social website, you can build up your persona with meticulous care and wisdom. You can accomplish all these things, but they are serialized and dependent on the ever-important update.

I'll click one of my links, and maybe there will be something new revealed about an upcoming videogame. Maybe one of my friends will have added to a continuing conversation. Maybe there's something in my inbox for me to consume. I anticipate these things, and check for them greedily, particularly when I have been away for long enough to expect a hearty crop. Occasionally I'll check something repeatedly without thinking about it, even though a new update is absurdly unlikely.

Is this an addiction? Not in any special way; no more so than your shopping and television and beer. I should not make an appearance on 60 minutes. I only spend too much time reading and analyzing and practicing my humor and rhetoric. It releases chemicals in my brain, but so does everything else in life, so I hesitate to label my internet use an addiction. However, I've become unhappy with the way my habit restricts me and imposes upon my work and sleep. Compulsive enjoyment has a way of becoming less enjoyable over time. Recently I meditated and decided to go to sleep very early rather than staying on the internet, and I felt incredibly liberated. I'll see if I can cultivate that feeling, but I can't promise anything.

In my next post I will discuss another example of how habits and goals can become very negative when they go unchanged, unquestioned, and unaudited for too long. I recently switched from majoring in nuclear engineering to majoring in English, and everybody always wants an explanation, so it's time to write up a good one. Hopefully you will not check the blog compulsively in the meantime.