Getting away from digital distraction

Powers, like me, and probably like you, is a guy who lives most of his life in the electronic ether. For a long time, when cut off from wifi, from email and the clamouring crowd of online networks, from access and connection, he would feel anxious, frustrated, even angry. We've all been there, in the boonies, standing on the outdoor table, holding our phone high in the air, stretching and reaching precariously for that sweet, sweet fleeting hit of wireless or 3G that'll pull us out of the cold, dark past where we were all alone in the world.

The time one day he dropped his phone in a lake

And at the time one day he dropped his phone in a lake. It was an accident nevertheless after his initial panic and dizzying freak out as he realised he was many miles and hours away from the nearest opportunity of jacking into the net – I love the way the language of addiction seems so appropriate – a strange calm came over him. He was beyond contact. No emails would find him. No texts. No calls. No DMs or Facebook invites. No tweets. Nothing. He was free. Terrifyingly liberated. Free from the madding, ever present crowd.

He's not in a class by itself in this. So many of us are searching for a way to quiet the caterwauling crush of the crowd, even as we find the crush strangely comforting, warm and attractive. This isn't to take some Luddite position that the new innovation of connectedness will doom us all. That would be as short-sighted as Socrates was when he condemned the written word, at that time a relatively new 'research' in 5th century Athens, as a 'dangerous invention' and a barrier to ideas flowing freely and changing as they could while spoken discourse. The difference between speech and writing, thought Socrates, was akin to that between the world of real things and a painting of a scene from that world. Paintings "stand there as if they are alive, however if anyone asks the anything they remain most solemnly silent". For Socrates, Powers explains, a piece of writing is dead. It can yet signify one thing forever.

It is undeniable on the whole, that the great gift of connectedness that our shiny precious phones and tablets have delivered us is at times a left-handed gift. A half hour on an if not slow night, spent on Twitter, with a drink in hand, can be as pleasant as an evening at most splendid cocktail party where you find yourself the wittiest fellow in a room full of Oscar Wildes and Dorothy Parkers. Nevertheless a whole day wasted because you continually abandoned your thesis, or novel, or children to check Facebook updates, or ego surf Google, or, ahem, join in a flame war on your favourite blog, can be draining, frustrating and annoying to the point of migraine, in some cases because you feel yourself a hopeless addict for not just walking away from it all.

This explains, I think, the growing interest in apps like Omni-writer that force us to concentrate on one thing, writing in that case, to short circuit the multitasking urge. Or Freedom, a program that cuts your computer off from network activities for set periods of time. So too in the course of time management techniques just as the Pomodoro method, which I credit with letting me escape the dizzying gravitational pull of the crowd and in fact finish my last book. 

I remember listening to Jean Baudrillard some years ago, and was fascinated by his extension of his core idea of systematic signification to contrast between the various forms of communication; eg. spoken language portrayed meanings different to the same words in printed form. He added that electronic communication is quite different in that the user is seduced by the delusion that the content is important.

Book called Distracted

There is a book called Distracted by Maggie Jackson which is quite similar and looks at how work practices and productivity is impacted by research and the modern style open plan workplaces that bleed into your personal life.

I have but to jump on the E Reader train. I much prefer the book format. I can shove it in my work bag to read on the bus, take it inside or outside, stick it on the shelf to clutter up the bulging bookshelves when finished, and even get the author to sign the book! Try THAT with your E Reader. Similarly, I don't mind being out of range of mobile phones or computers. The world will nevertheless keep turning without my input into the various social media forms I utilise, and I can catch up on it all when I return to civilisation.