Commentary

The Anxiety of Connectedness

In an interview on the McKinsey & Company website, Gary Shteyngart, author of the best-selling novel “Super Sad True Love Story,” remarks: "Yeah, I don’t think I’m any happier than I was before the iPhone and immersion in the Internet. I think I’m much more anxious and much more stressed out."

Good thing he doesn't have an iPad; he might have committed suicide by now.

Sitting waist-deep on the Internet for about 12 hours a day (plus checking that BlackBerry for another four hours when the PC is off for the night) can without question make your life more stressful, as you fear that any minute something important might develop without your direct knowledge -- and you'll have to catch up to it as it moves over social media, online media, and eventually traditional media.

Take the divorce of Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries after about 72 days of marriage. Who wouldn't want to be immediately in the know on this important development -- since, as it turns out, it dominated the news cycle (including the broadcast network news), nearly overshadowing the charges of sexual impropriety against Herman Cain? Imagine your only response to those breaking the news to you being something flaccid like "Kim who?" The shame of it.

Maybe this 24/7 connectedness wasn't such as good idea after all. If we spend all of our time worring about what just popped in the cell phone inbox or what TMZ knows that we don't, we are in a state of persistent anxiety rendering us fixated on the now, and increasingly incapable of focusing/thinking in depth. Says Shteyngartlater on in his interview, "I know professors who can’t read an entire book -- professors of English literature, mind you. So everyone’s attention span has been shot. We’re no longer used to processing long strings of information."

I know he is right, since when I turn off Colbert at midnight and start to read, I now get through only about four pages before I start to nod off, while I used to get through at least six or eight. Nodding off generally results in having to reread a few pages, so my pace is down to somewhere between a 2nd grader and illiterate. Damned that digital media!

We have a rule in our house that nobody brings their cell phones to the dinner table, so we can focus on our discussions of world events such as the European sovereign debt crisis, what will happen to tax rates if Obama wins again, and how cool “Modern Family”was this week. Yet at least once a week I catch someone texting beneath the table. And it isn't always one of the kids. I try to assure the gathering that nothing is so important that it can't wait a half hour, but receive back only that "You are SUCH a clueless moron" blank stare that teenagers have perfected over the eons. At least it is not delivered electronically.

I would like to be able to offer some handy tips for avoiding distractions like incoming mail as you focus on the little copy bytes you take online -- but alas, I am just as compulsive as you are. After all, it might be news that Herman made a pass at Kim!

 

 

 

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