Does computer use lead to sensory deprivation?

Knowledge may be power – but choose your sources wisely.

“We speak worlds into existence.” That was the last quote I read in my ‘Monday Morning Memo’ this morning. Then, I absentmindedly continued to click on links with news headlines like Comparisons to the Great Depression keep popping up and Doomsday: How BP Disaster may have triggered a ‘world killing’ event.

Why would I do that? You’d be justified to ask…  Those news stories were links posted by someone I follow on Twitter, an internet aquaintance named @ChrisLaBossiere, listed under ‘Politickers’ because of his capitalist brains and forthright ability to intelligently comment on current events. (I’m not a progressive or a capitalist.) Thankfully, a few more clicks led me to, aside from a wasted hour of my life, the temporary reassurance provided by a complete stranger (@stimms) .

Depending on your internet committment level, you’ll either click on the links and read other newstories, become sidetracked from my blog and follow all kinds of random links to other stories and other tweeters and eventually get caught up reading @aplusk (Ashton Kutcher’s tweets) – ooorrr – you’ll read this post, feel complete indifference and click out as fast as you clicked in. 

There is no denying the power of internet and social media.

The challenge is – how do you sort and separate the garbage from the goldmine and not let your time on Facebook suck the hours out of your life? Every minute I spend chasing headlines about people, places and events that haven’t happen, may never happen or are happening in a parallel universe called California, I miss my own life.

And I am disconnected from reality.

Right now, in the middle of this gloomy, drizzling July 19, 2010, 
a day that will only come one time, I am using my own precious moments to read about what a total stranger thinks about world events, and other people’s drama.

I feel pulled.
Addicted.
It’s one of the first things I do in my day.
Grab a coffee, check my email. Then Facebook.

And I read stories like that of Doomsday and the end of the world, and I wonder why I feel panicked?
Worried. Hopeless. Agitated. 
Depressed.

Sensory Deprivation

From Wikipedia, Sensory deprivation is the deliberate reduction or removal of stimuli from one or more of the senses. Short-term sessions of sensory deprivation are described as relaxing and conducive to meditation, however, extended or forced sensory deprivation can result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts and depression.

Maybe my connection to a world outside myself, leads to the failure to connect with myself.
With my own life.

Every moment that I spend
seeking, clicking, reading,
competing to be heard, trying to say something important,
trying to be seen as valuable and relevent…

Every moment that I waste
trying to catch up with a revolving stream of information, news and opinion that doesn’t affect me, doesn’t apply to me, and doesn’t interest me, 

is a moment that I could have spent doing something of value for me. For my family. For my children. In my own. In my community. In my business. Every moment I stay plugged in to the world outside me, I ignore myself.
And I deprive myself of the magic of living  my own reality.

Maybe that’s why so many of us plug into the digital world of escapsim – because it appears far more interesting that our own boring life.

Allowing ourselves to stay hypnotized by the internet allows us to focus on something other than what we believe we are missing, don’t have or are not. It keeps us from examining our own lack. It’s like day use lidocaine, keeping us asleep to the beauty of our own life.  

Maybe we don’t trust ourself, our own knowledge, our own power to create the world we want – the life of our dreams. Maybe it’s because we just aren’t smart enough to see that we are bit by bit dulling our senses to the beauty of life.

Trading vivid colours, potent taste, exquisite music, heavenly smells, languid touch for a 2D world of images and stories created by someone else. Someone I’ll never meet. Someone who doesn’t know me. Someone that doesn’t love me.

But when I shut it off and pay attention to my own world, I find it far more interesting, real and wonderful.

I’m not niave enough to believe I can manage without any computer use.
But, a little more everyday, I’m trading a pixel image and electromagnetic pollution for the real deal.

My life. Whatever that looks like: sunshine or clouds, joy or tears, boredom or busy, love or loss and the beauty of the five senses.

I want to see, touch, taste, smell and feel everything.
To experience it all. And maybe that’s what I really need to know.