The internet gave me ADHD

First Google Reader, then Gmail. Then it's alltop and maybe a little random searching on YouTube or Funny or Die. Those books in my bookshelf collect more and more dust because the internet and TiVo have taken over my entertainment leisure time. I think Steve Jobs hit it right on the head when he was talking about the Amazon Kindle e-book reader.

"It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore...Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore."

I used to read all the time. Hell, half of my childhood was spent in the library with my nose buried behind a book (may explain the pasty whiteness). Now I have an entire shelf of half-read paperbacks that I don't see finishing any time soon. I've gotten so used to processing small chunks of information and moving images that I find it almost impossible to sit and read the same thing for an extending period of time. Scanning headlines through RSS feeds has rotted out the concentration centers of my brain to the point where even studying is difficult. I used to be able to knock out 5-6 hour study sessions. Now I go 30 minutes and my brain starts to short circuit. A good New Yorker article is now a bore because I can't make it past page 3.

I'm considering going to audiobooks because I don't see things improving anytime soon. I would have moved to them earlier but I can't help shake the feeling that I'm cheating if I listened to a book in the car on my iPod.

Comments

[Laura]

Hmmm...you know what comes in audio? HARRY POTTER. Maybe you can FINALLY fulfill your end of that little literary bargain we made a few years ago.

[Rob O.]

I kinda think there's a nugget of truth in there!

Perhaps even worse, cell phones have made sure that nobody can hold a conversation any more. I mean, the reception is typically so crappy that nobody wants to spend more than 20 seconds talking. And they'd rather text message ya, anyway...

[Dragonfly]

I still read masses. But 5-6 hour study sessions no longer work. Ooops, that sounds more like laziness than internet induced ADHD.