Hyper-Connected & I Think It’s Bad for Me

I miss the old days. For me that was the early 90’s before I owned a handphone. I used to focus and seemed to get a lot more done. Things were slower paced at work, but interactions were higher quality. Ironically I think we spent time a lot more effectively then, with fewer distractions like emails.

But things got really bad after I starting owning a smart phone in 2011. I resisted for very long before that but everyone around me had one, and I was feeling like a dinosaur.

These days I think I have some kind of attention deficit and get angsty if I am not doing something on my phone, be it something as simple as checking for the exact meaning of a word including pictures of it. It halts my reading of a book (if at every get to concentrating and reading in the first place instead of playing a game on my phone)

There is this unquenchable need to know everything and it’s made worse because the answer is literally at your fingertips. Often that something is rather trivial.

The ease at which we can access information is becoming a hindrance, don’t you think?

I am unable to truly focus on just one task and get it done well.

I really need to find some time to get disconnected. A tech free day.

Right now it doesn’t seem possible as I feel nervous without my phone in hand. So embarrassing, this lack of control.

I worry about loosing my phone even more than loosing my wallet. Previously my wallet would be the main thing I would check.

Please tell me I’m not alone.

About bookjunkie

Blogging about life in Singapore & recently cancer too.
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8 Responses to Hyper-Connected & I Think It’s Bad for Me

  1. Boiling says:

    I am younger but old fashioned. I really like to have quality interactions and face to face but most people around me are addicted to their handphones. I think our brains and lives are getting overwhelmed with useless information which is reducing our efficiency. I am not addicted to my phone because rarely does anything urgent come for me (and customers/bosses always pretend theirs is the most urgent thing in the world)and I realised how much calmer I feel without constant info influx from technology which motivates me to stay away.

    • bookjunkie says:

      Yes I miss that feeling of calm without all the useless information and yes everyone thinks their request/email is the most critical & urgent 😉

  2. Expat Kiwis says:

    Oh, you are definately not alone on this one! I check my bag at least 3 times to see if I have my phone with me!

  3. katrijn says:

    I am the worst of both worlds: I forget my phone all the time and it is SO annoying, especially for the people trying to reach me. I SHOULD be checking my bag several times a day for my phone.

    Another annoying thing is that I can’t use internet on my phone when I’m not within wifi range (i.e. work/home). So just when I need it (directions, whatsapp because I’m meeting someone, when I’m bored on the mrt) I can’t use the internet. This means I am quite often lost and late, which is no change from before the smartphone era, but people’s tolerance has gone markedly down. (Also: why are there no longer non-internet-y games automatically installed on phones? Give me back my Tetris!)

    My life has changed only a little since having a smart phone (it is handy to be able to check my gmail in bed in the morning before kids start jumping around. No chance of getting to the laptop!) but one important thing is that people are much more annoyed with my antics, when before they were just part of the way things were.

    Or maybe I’m just an old fogey at heart who likes things to stay the same, all. the. time. (I do actually really like that.) But the world has moved on.

    I suppose I’m trying to say that smartphones and being connected is just the way things are nowadays, and I think it’s absolutely right to be more worried about the phone than the wallet – the wallet’s just money, the phone is pictures, contacts, information – your portal to the world! I remember when my friend lost her wallet over a decade ago and the thing she was worried about were the treasured pictures inside and the tickets to memorable events and so on. Now nobody carries those in their wallets anymore, so it’s just cards and the like. It’s a nuisance, but they can be replaced easily. Memories are in the phone, so that is the valuable thing.

    I think the majority of my life is made up of moments that I don’t use to their greatest effect. It’s something I struggle with, but also something that I know from experience I can’t fight. I have never been able to concentrate on one task for a long time (except for writing and then only when either the muse strikes (very rare) or the deadline looms (common)). The phone is just the latest way of distracting myself from stuff that needs to be done, or people that need to be talked to.

    I suppose, as long as I manage to give the children my full attention most of the time, we’ll be alright. It’s not a very lofty goal, but it’ll have to do.

    • bookjunkie says:

      I am the same way when it comes to writing and wish the world was like it used to be, so I didn’t have to catch up and be so connected..and now addicted.

      I feel like my life has changed too much since the smartphone, internet etc. Guess it’s because I’m a sucker for immediate gratification and needs to know stuff immediately if it’s available even though it may not be the most critical thing. And I have internet connection through both wifi and 3g so that makes it kinda worse. It is great though to be able to check addresses, use the GPS etc.

      & so true what you said about things in the wallet being easily replaced. For me the phone contains private things and that’s why it’s even scarier to loose it.

  4. HT says:

    U r not alone. The frustration of losing a hp cannot be underestimated. Sadly / happily we store too much data n connection.

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