The art of focus (or how I had to check Facebook at least five times while writing this article)

My days always start with so much potential. I’ll have my mental list of tasks that need to get done. Some small tasks that shouldn’t take more than a few minutes, a couple bigger ones that might take the better part of a month, most that shouldn’t take more than a couple hours.

So I’ll sit there trying to prioritize the items. Maybe I’ll decide to get a couple of the little ones out of the way, tackle a medium sized bad-boy, and then get a couple hours in on one of the bigger projects. But before I start, I’ll do a quick Facebook check, just to see if anything is going down. Usually nothing is, things almost never ‘go down’ on Facebook, but I’ll see some shared post in my feed about an a-list actor just accused of sexually embezzling an orangutan, which I’ll know is a completely nonsensical headline, and yet, I’ll click on the link anyway…because hey, what if sexually embezzling orangutans is actually a thing, and an a-list celebrity I know is somehow involved? Hell yeah, that’ll get my eyeballs.

Of course, it’ll almost always turn out to be some lame photo gallery of orangutans in lingerie stuffed with dollar bills, and after five to seventeen minutes of looking through monkey pics, I’ll generally feel like it’s been a serious waste of my time. Because I have work to do, and a long list of tasks to plow through. So I’ll make the active decision to get right back to those tasks, after I comment on my friend’s orangutan post. I’ll say something clever, witty, borderline genius, and then I’ll close out of Facebook. Because, actual work to do and all.

Then, I’ll get right to work…but not before I remember that I haven’t had my morning tea, and I absolutely need my morning tea, seeing as I think better with an ultra low dose of caffeine working through my body.

So on most days, I’ll make my tea, add a Splenda for taste, and wonder if anybody reacted to my genius comment on Facebook. Since my tea needs five minutes to steep, I’ll do a quick check in on Facebook. And I’ll notice that nobody has commented or even liked my genius post. “Okay, great,” I’ll think to myself. Now I’ll be able to stop checking Facebook and get some real work done. My tea will still be too hot to drink, so I’ll have no excuse not to start working. Then I’ll wonder, “what was that show, about that guy who was always making excuses to not start working?” The name of the show will be right on the tip of my tongue…so I’ll google it. Some vague boolean search of some random things I remember about the show. A news article will pop up about how the young plucky excuses making guy from that show I was trying to remember had just joined an alien worshiping cult. I’ll read up on the cult’s Wikipedia page, and might check out a video or two about them on YouTube. I’ll discover that this cult happens to put out some of the most entertaining movie reviews. And not the sci-fi alien movies you’d expect. Really insightful and funny reviews of touching character films. I’ll blaze through three or four of these videos before I remember they also worship aliens and the spell will be broken.

I’ll shut off YouTube, and get back to getting back to work. But first, I’ll decide to check if anyone reacted to my Facebook comment. It was a really genius comment. It would for sure have some comments by now.

— — — — — — — —

That’s my day in a nutshell, if a nutshell had 200mbps wifi and like 19 devices that have access to all the world’s information within arms reach.

I’ve recently become hyper aware of this pattern.

I can’t get five seconds into a thought before this nagging little voice in my head starts tugging at my brain collar. “Hey, I wonder how tall that actor in that show I saw last night is?” or “What’s the longest word in the English language?” or “What’s the best way to avoid Internet procrastination?”

I’m not kidding, I once went down a multi-hour rabbit hole reading articles on how to avoid procrastination.

I’m an addict.

I wrote that sentence after doing a quick twitter check.

In the olden days, circa 2006, if you had a question pop into your head (“where is Mynanmar?” “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?” “How would you rank the Rolling Stones albums from best to worst?”) you’d make a note of it, and later on, when you were by a computer, or near a library, you might look it up. Assuming you remembered to look it up, which you almost never did, because let’s face it, most of this information is useless. In prehistoric times (circa 1994) when man had to wait for a dial up modem to connect to the Internet (pause for the chhhhhhh-ahhhhhh-oooooooo-beepbooop ahwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww throat clearing connection sound) and then wait minutes on end for information to load line by line, people were even less likely to look up this meaningless information. But now, all this useless and meaningless information is at our fingertips…and this superpower is having a profound effect on our lives, our free time, and our mental states. Now, when I wonder how many people live in the province of Manitoba, I can have the answer in seconds. For useful information, this technology is great. “What route should I take to go to work?” “What country should I vacation in, that isn’t in the middle of a violent rebel insurrection?” “Will it rain today?” But for every piece of useful information we could get, there is an infinite universe of information that will provide absolutely nothing, other than a piece of trivia that might come in handy when you’re on Jeopardy. “I’ll take useless crap for 1000, Alex!”

Speaking of useless crap, I just took another break to check Facebook. I’m in the middle of an argument on some inane topic where neither I nor the person I’m arguing against are experts in the subject. Our arguments have next to zero chance of influencing policy, and at best will be read by three or four people who could very well be better informed on the topic than either of us. These experts will laugh, and move on to their own Facebook argument on some topic they know absolutely nothing about. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. A lot. Even as an expert on bullshit, I am humbled by the bullshitery I find online.

So, I’m constantly distracted, I’m constantly filling my brain with factoids, and some (or most) of these factoids are demonstrably wrong (you mean the ostrich isn’t the fastest land mammal in the Arctic?). Is there an upside? Well, maybe I could argue I’m moderately better informed on some narrow range of topics, because I personally like to get my information from multiple sources, hoping it might get me closer to some objective truth. What it really does is get me closer to zero level productivity.

And it’s not only productivity that taking a hit. Reading an article, or a Wikipedia post or making a well thought out plea for rationality on Facebook feel like accomplishing something. It feels like you’re doing something important, almost pressing. At least for me. Reading that article about an old classmate who now runs a fortune 500 company, or about that other former classmate who is in prison for embezzlement (not involving simians) suddenly feels important. It feels pressing. This isn’t something I need to take care of later. It’s something I need to take care of now!

“Dad, Guess what I did in school today?” My son will ask with wide open eyes.

“Tell me in a second, I’m just finishing up reading this Wikipedia post on Universal Basic Income, and I need to know how it ends!”

“Honey, can you help me with the dishes?” My wife will ask.

“Sure. Sure. Just let me tell this person online why he’s totally wrong about universal basic income! (links to Wikipedia to be provided)”

“My water just broke!” My wife will say standing in a puddle of amniotic fluid.

“That’s awesome. I’ll get you to a hospital ASAP, just let me finish checking out this character actor’s IMDB page! Did you know the same guy was in Game of Thrones and The Muppets go to Vegas?”

I’m almost never present in my own life. I’m like the villain in a bad superhero comic. “More power! More information! (Evil Cackle) I need MORE!”

This information addiction is intruding on my life. It is negatively impacting my relationships, it’s making me a worse person and I’m not really sure how to stop.

Well, I am sure how to stop, it’s just hard as hell.

This is how.

You stop.

Wondering what the GDP of Mexico is?

Don’t look it up. I know it’s right there in your pocket. Don’t care. Don’t look it up.

Made a genius comment on Facebook? Great. You made the genius comment already. If a comment is liked in the forest, and nobody is around to get a Facebook notification, is it still liked? Hell yeah. Stop checking it for likes.

And when you are spending time with friends and or family, get the phone away. Turn it off. Or keep it out of reach. Or use a passcode that makes it a pain in the ass to open your phone.

Eventually, it gets easier and easier to ween yourself off this junk diet of instant gratification I keep lying to myself.

It’s so damn easy to fall back into old traps. I went Facebook free for a week. After the week was done, I decided to check it once, and felt like I had missed absolutely nothing. I felt no pull to comment, or scroll through the feed. I felt like I was free of the social media demon.

So I checked it again then next day — not because I was addicted, but because I was genuinely curious about how other people were so addicted and actually unaware of their addiction. I saw it as almost a social experiment.

And I checked again the next day. This time I left a comment. It was short. Nothing too clever. And before I logged out, the little red globe lit up. Someone liked my comment.

Dopamine receptors in my brain lit up like Christmas at than one guy on your block’s house (you know the one — you need eclipse viewing glasses to look anywhere near his place) .

And I was hooked again.

So, I’m working on cutting out my Internet addiction (I write, after having checked Facebook and Google at least five times while writing this article). But I’m not entirely sure what kind of world I’m going to wake up in.

When I go technology free, I become hyper aware of how everyone around me has their faces buried in their phones. Or their ipads. Or laptops. Or smart watches. Or (god help us!) augmented reality goggles. Yeah, I know, stop the presses! Guy discovers some people spend too much time on phones. This isn’t that kind of article. This is more therapy for me. Maybe if I write it down, I’ll be more aware the next time I get the google call to adventure. Maybe I’ll have the power to stop myself before I spend three hours reading reviews of a product I’m probably not going to buy anyway (Hello iPhone X!).

Or maybe not. Maybe this is an exercise in futility.

I’m no expert, and maybe everything I wrote above is completely wrong. But in this age of the Internet, I’m going to decide that I am an expert, and Dunning-Kruger out some advice.

Take time to focus. Stop the distractions. Hell, start by being aware of the distractions when they pop up. Stop the information addiction. Stop reading self help posts like this one that will have minimal impact on your lives.

Our lives and out relationships will be richer for it.

Now I’m off to check Facebook.

Or not. Maybe not. Who knows?

How hard is it to break free of Internet addiction?

I bet google has an answer for that.