Day One: Frustration

I am a victim of link temptation. I do not remember the last time I finished reading an entire online article and fully soaked in the information that I had read. This is due to my nearly incessant need to see where links lead. It is not that I am nonstop clicking links that are advertisements, but more so that I always seem to find myself more interested in the other titles promoted on the side bar, or in a keyword or in a different blog on the website that really resonates with me.

The consequences are proving to be quite adverse. I find that instead of gaining a deeper understanding of various topics, I have become more knowledgeable on how to find the information on those topics. Wow, that last sentence sounds slightly pathetic; but I believe it is the truth.

Before SEO became a common necessity for all significant websites on the Internet, and before there were millions of sharing capabilities, I was an avid offline reader. I would spend long hours (straight), reading magazines, newspapers, novels (both fiction and nonfiction), and I would retain a lot of information on what I had read. When I did need to go on the Internet, it was for activities like instant messaging, playing Pacman, or researching topics for grade school papers. At that time, I would get on a website read and see if the article was something along the lines of what I needed, print it out, and read as if it were a xerox copy from an encyclopedia.

To compare the two periods of my life in less-rambling sentences...

Then: I remembered the information first and foremost, and would occasionally remember where I found the information. I would tell friends and family, "I read somewhere that..."

Now: I remember immediately where or how I found the information, and less of what the actual content was explaining. Now I might tell friends and family, "If you google something like, "Peaceful Chicago 20 Places," you might find the best places to go on walks in the city.

What the hell?

Like I noted earlier in this piece, I'm frustrated.

I have realized that the way I go about collecting information has evolved so drastically over the last 12 or so years of my life (I'm only 20) due to the excitement over using the Internet to find information fast. The problem I see is that during my child development years, no one encouraged my peers and I to preserve the old ways of focusing in on the information one thing at a time as was the norm in the pre-web days.

Maybe it's "a personal problem" as my stepdad would say, but maybe some of you out there are on the same page too? Maybe?