The Age of Distraction

As someone living with ADHD, I have become accustomed to dealing with distraction. Recently I was thinking about my fascination with computers and the internet, and how addicting social networking sites like Myspace, Flickr, Blogspot, and LinkedIn have become for me, not to mention RSS feeds delivered a la Google Reader. And let's not forget my love for Ma.gnolia and social bookmarking, either ^_^

I started to consider how the information age has really just turned into the age of distraction. You may have already seen surveys showing how we paradoxically seem to be getting dumber as the access to information increases. In my search for further distraction, I discovered a few interesting articles on this phenomenon:

Big Babies (or the Age of Distraction)

"...it seemed to me, blurred between work and distraction: both exist to keep our minds off the central existential problem facing intelligent life on this planet..."

The Age of Distraction

"...using technologies like RSS and cellphones, we have trained ourselves to be constantly aware and on the lookout for distractions."

Is my obsession a feature or a bug?

Love the comments here:
A: How many people with ADD does it take to change a light-bulb?
B: I don't know? How many?
A: Want to go to the movies

The Onion once had a headline..."Ritalin Cures Next Picasso"

i try to think of ADD as 'hyper threading' as even though i have ADD, i can still hang onto threads and fall back to them. i think its about losing interest in something, picking up on another more mind captivating thing, regaining interest and continuing one with the previous thing.

Only in a society where people are expected to sit on their asses for 8 hours a day from kindergarden till retirement would people even think of calling it a disease.

N.A.D.D.

"Ocassionally, you'll attempt to impart your fractured wisdom only to throw your hands up four minutes later when it's clear, 'Jesus, they just don't get it.'"