Gems from boredom

As a writer, I often multitask. I put the part of my brain that is writing headlines on a burner to simmer and go surfing the web. (I can't even remember what I did before the Internet? Talk to people?) I found this young whipper snapper's site. He was born in 1985, the year I graduated college. And he taught me a few things.

I've always felt a bit conflicted about email and Facebook and the constant barrage of online crap that keeps me from doing. (There was a time in my life when I wouldn't even go to movies because I felt I should be out experiencing life, not watching it happen.) Now I waste hours online, some of it helpful, lots of it not. I've reconnected with people who drifted away and always wondered about (hello old boyfriend, former fiance, past co-worker) but I also fall into a comparison trap (she looks better, his house is bigger, she's more successful.)

Ev experiments and one of his experiments was to untether from Facebook. Here's how he put it:

Overview: I began to notice in late 2010 that my interactions on Facebook were keeping me from being present in my own life. I knew what everyone else was doing, except the person across the table from me. I had 1,000+ friends, and couldn’t figure out where they’d all come from. Dunbar’s law states that a human mind can only have 150 connections, so I knew something was wrong. Facebook’s “Like” function kept drawing me back into the application, distracting me from my own life. So, I decided to quit.
Intention: Quit Facebook in order to be more present in my own life.
Length: Initiated in Dec 2010 –> Indefinitely.
Results: Many extra hours in my life to be present with the people who are actually in my life.

I don't think I could disconnect, but it's interesting to think about.