Thursday, January 26, 2012

Stopping the Addiction with the Addiction

In a recent YouTube video of William Powers speaking to a book critic about his novel "Hamlet's Blackberry," Powers says that he has sold more eBooks of his copy than hard copies in print. He then goes on to say that he believes the reason that the percentage of copies bought as eBooks is so much higher than hard copies, because most of his readers are so connected  to the "screen copies" that it's the only way they feel comfortable reading it. The man he is speaking with goes as far as referring to these people as "addicts."

After watching the video, what really stuck in my mind was when the term addicts came into play. The first thing I thought of was drug addiction and its addicts. I thought back to a show I watched recently over drug addiction and how rehab helps them with overcoming the addiction to the drug. One way, is that in some cases the rehabilitation center will actually give a very small dose of the drug so that the addict's body doesn't go into complete shock after giving up the dependency for the drug.

Is this what it has come to with the addiction to the internet and mobile devices or just online devices in general? That we have to stop our addiction with our addiction by getting it in smaller doses just like how "Hamlet's Blackberry" is offered online as an eBook. It seems that as humans we may be in over our heads with this being one of the largest addiction outbreaks in human history.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Time for a Slowdown

After reading "The Joy of Quiet," by Pico Iyer it made me really think about how as indivuiduals we have gone from loving the fast-paced world of receiving information to unconciously hating it. The article dicusses what people need to do in order to be able to keep sane in this second-by-second world. Without knowing, people are taking in enourmous amounts of information in a day with spending only seconds on each piece. Not only is the information being processed too quickly, but also with distrations while processing it  (i.e. e-mails, text messages).

One way to help people with processing more with less is a new device called  Freedom. This device allows for a user to turn off their internet service for hours at a time. According to Iyer, having this freedom to relax helps the overall achievement with processing the information that one takes in. Another technique is visiting a "Black Hole Resort." This type of resort allows a person to come stay at the resort and leave all of the technolgy behind. There is no service for cell phones or the internet and it allows for complete "stillness," as Iyer states. For mankind to slow down before it's too fast for its own good, everyone would benefit from one of these two new relaxing techniques.