6 comments

• 

  Laura Hale

  12 months ago

  in the comments of the Kaplak blog and there is a certain freedom to interacting with fandom this way. It also means that I can blog at my own leisure. I can rely on others to help provide content. My tasks thus descend to getting my startup off the ground by getting funding by doing the marketing work, networking work, being connected with the backend developer and finding people to get involved with. My other task is to generally keep informed. (But the whole startup part means I have less time to just delve into what I love because I can't spend two weeks obsessing over writing a 45,000 word document on subject of interest.) So yeah, similar issues but more free than you because of the wiki format.
  reply
• 

  Nik Smit

  12 months ago

  The overhead associated with being constantly distracted is huge. In CPUs, this is called "switching cost" - every time a computer switches between tasks (threads), it has to load stuff out of its memory, load other stuff into its memory, and get going again. This is actually very inefficient.
  
  People work in the same way. We can only hold so much in our heads at one time, and distractions can cause to to start from zero again.
  
  I too am hyperconnected, and I know exactly what you mean about the cold shudder of asking "what now?" if the internet is gone.
  
  Services like twitter only add to the already huge load of incoming (news) data we get.
  
  Its just not sustainable though - every single tweet/rss item can lead to 10 minutes distraction. There are only so many hours in the day (and occasionally we need to sleep/eat/get married, etc.).
  
  I think we're going through an adolescent phase with data - its all so new and shiny and instant, that we cant get enough. But ultimately we'll have to grow up,and start putting strong filters on whats grabbing our attention.
  
  Probably software will come to our rescue here - intelligent agents interrupting as at good moments, with just the (summarized) data we need.
  In fact, it has to! We're probably too addicted to wean ourselves off alone ;)
  reply
• 

  David Niall Wilson

  12 months ago

  I'm there...not perhaps to your extent - but Google Trends is the centerpiece of my home page, Twitter is live in Tweetdeck - Gmail is up, and there are a number of writing related sites I frequent.
  
  I've shifted writing styles. When I write, there are always points where I quit and think before going on. I now fill those and empty the dreck by flicking through the various "connections" in my life...then go right back to it. But I can disconnect for long periods to make things happen.
  
  It requires discipline to remain on the proper side of the threshold between too much connectivity and useful connectivity. Another good post.
  
  D
  reply
• 

  Gadget Nerd

  12 months ago

  Because of the nature of my own blog I do try and "keep ahead" of the news, especially technology / gadget news.
  
  On a personal level I think I'm fairly well connected.
  
  I have a twitter / pownce / skitch / friendfeed / flickr / Ovi Share / last.fm account... seems like a lot....
  
  I also check email regularly, maybe more than I should, and am fairly regularly found on MSN and YIM...
  
  I also read lots of forums....
  
  I have no doubt that this affects productivity in my life.
  
  less is more maybe?
  reply
• 

  m8nd1

  12 months ago

  I'm nodding along with everything you're saying, but the bags under my eyes are showing that I probably can't keep it up. Have recently been doing some research into IM in a work environment, instant messenging v interruption management. Some research shows that many distractions in terms of emails and other information coming in can actually stimulate the brain, and makes for a more alert employee! If only I could leave it all behind when I leave the office..!
  reply
• 

  rafacas

  12 months ago

  <img src="http://www.wellingtongrey.net/miscellanea/archive/2007-04-08--infinite-loop.png" width="50%" height="50%" alt="Infinite Loop"/>
  
  We would add to the image, microblogging services, as twitter, and more webs 2.0, such as facebook, friendfeed, etc, but I think the image represents the hyperconnection situation.
  
  Cheers
  reply