Recently, I read a post on Writer Beware! about the problems that blogger is having with the Internet and procrastination. This has now become enough of an issue that software is being sold to block users from Internet access for set periods:
I also know I'm not alone in struggling with this problem--which is why I was doubly pleased to discover
this blog post by
ShelfTalker's Elizabeth Bluemle. She spoke with a number of writers about their distraction-circumventing techniques, and got some fascinating responses (it's really interesting how many writers move to a different spot, or use a different computer). She also links to
a program called Freedom, which lets you block the Internet for up to eight hours at a time. You can disable it once you've set it--but you have to re-boot, and, theoretically at least, "the hassle of rebooting means you're less likely to cheat."
I was reminded of my early posts on shortening attention spans and procrastination,
here and
here. This is the problem of
time bleed, caused by overexposure to tech and the Internet, which erodes our days.
But what interests me more is motivation and emotional responses to time as they relate to Cyberspace. One commenter on the
Writers Beware! blog felt that procrastination results from fear. But there is something larger to this if people feel so helpless that they can no longer turn off the Internet by themselves and need a program to do it for them.
Web surfing no longer constitutes procrastination. It's become part of living. The idea that the time we spend on the Internet isn't 'real time,' or 'worthwhile time,' or is 'wasted time,' hails from the early 1990s to the mid 2000s, when the Web was still a novelty and contrasted with 'real' activities.