6:00am: Alarm goes off.
Nope.
6:10am: Alright, alright.
I started working on this art project that's due later today -- copying a painting on 8.5x11 paper to 18x24. Yay. Not a trip through the park for someone who's not naturally apt at making lines on a paper look like real life.
About halfway in, I could feel my brain starting to fuzz.
>Need. to take. break.<
I moved to another section of the painting to try to distract myself.
And then moved again.
And again.
By 6:50, I thought I was going to explode.
>Just make it till 7:00. Just make it till 7:00.<
I ended up making it until 7:08. Not bad, if I do say so myself -- it was almost a full hour.
I was frustrated, though. Frustrated with my own ability to concentrate for even an hour. No wonder I can't get any schoolwork done. Then I got on my computer and realized why.
I'm scrolling through my newsfeed and ---OHLOOKANOTIFICATION! -- >scrollscrollscroll< -- Ooh, this looks interesting. A few clicks and pages later, and I'm on a completely different track than I was to begin with.
Technology is altering my brain cells, conditioning my thinking to move along the same lines that they do when I'm on the computer. (oh wait, hold on, I've got a new email)
I'm not joking, I really did have an email right there.
Where was I? Ah yes. Did you know your brain is constantly growing and reshaping itself in order with your activities? If I spend tons of time on the computer hopping from one short lived moment to another, my brain will do the same thing in real life.
I wonder what we would look like if we did in real life what we do on the computer.
Say I'm chat messaging, blogwriting, watching a youtube video, and scrolling through facebook -- alternating between the 4 different tabs on my computer. In real life it would be as if I was writing in a notebook while watching TV and talking to a friend and reading the newspaper all at once.
"So what are you up to these days, Sophia?" I would say.
"And now, the friday evening news," the TV responds.
>Sophia is typing<
I laugh spontaneously at a joke from the newspaper.
"I've been doing a lot of songwriting," Sophia responds.
I answer by writing down a quote I read from the newspaper.
Art, science, literature, history, the whole of creation -- most importantly human beings -- deserve our full attention. I won't talk to my little brother while I write an email. If he has something to say, I'm going to listen to it in full.
And so ends one of Hannah's rants about technology.
