Hello World

Dealing with distraction

Ok, I admit it, the computer has reduced my attention span. I try to pretend it hasn't, but the fact is that I read in much smaller chunks than I used to, and I can't ignore the demands of email, even if it's just to delete a fragment of spam.

This article in the New York Times (registration required) suggests there might soon be a way in which our computers will be able to protect us from the very distractions which it has created in the first place... 

This is only the beginning of their anxieties about the internet...

Page 146

- Access to personal information
- Access to source materials not such a wide range as books
- Access won’t be as freely available as a book from the library
- Addictive and time consuming.
- Advertising
- All the inaccurate information.
- Anonymity
- Because it’s not monitored (which is a way is good)
- Being sucked into distracting and non-relevant enquiries.
- Can be a time waster
- Can’t benefit in terms of likely time spent on it.
- Can't understand it.
- Changes the nature of human social contact
- Chaos
- Charges and computer ownership put the net out of reach to many. We need cheap access.
- Checking sources for research.
- Children accessing unsuitable material.
- Children meeting the wrong people.
- Complete lack of control over what's published on it
- copyright infringement
- cost and complexity
- Death of the book for more people
- Decline in royalties of print published work.
- Difficult to sift out material at the correct level for different age groups.
- Difficulty in getting control
- Dumbs down.
- Dying of boredom with self-styled experts.
- Easy access it gives to children.
- Easy access to drugs/porn
- Effect on public reference libraries.
- E-mails, spam - too much
- Encourages zombie like addiction in the young.
- Erosion of copyright concept
- Everything
- Expose me to viruses and junk e-mail.
- Eye strain
- Failures in technology when I've planned to work.
- Filtering out all the rubbish when searching, bad design, e-commerce security
- Fraud
- Getting known
- Getting unwanted material
- Government interference.
- How I overcome my resistance and how to spare the time to get information.
- I am more interested in the content of knowledge than the form.
- I don't understand it. I don't see the need of it.
- I don't want a lot of unsolicited e-mails
- I have enough trouble using my computer
- I think children may learn erroneous facts
- I wouldn't want my children to access violence, pornography etc.
- I'm too old (84) to learn new tricks
- Increasing Government controls (or attempts)
- Information overload
- Intrusion
- It is overhyped.

and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on ...