"To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere"

I'm all for stopping and smelling the roses as you pass through life but I can't dedicate a whole day to it. There was an interesting article in today's online Age on how the Internet make us stupid (making a huge assumption that we weren't stupid in the first place). It tells us "a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the net, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers". It goes on to say that "people who are continually distracted by emails, updates and other messages understand less than those who are able to concentrate. And people who juggle many tasks are often less creative and less productive than those who do one thing at a time." Hogwash. We are all highly capable at being able to concentrate on more than one.... put the potatoes on. Sorry. What was I saying? Oh yes, one thing at a time. The Internet is not a novel. It's full of trashy advertisements and snippets of nothing stories NO NOT MINE, that on their own would not hold the attention of a slab of concrete and therefore only require brief interludes of focus. I think it's healthy to embrace the age of multi-tasking your brain. It brings a level of fitness to the mind and stops you turning into a vegetable. Did I put those spuds on or not? Where was I? Oh yes, the Internet. No it's not somewhere I would go to read Voltaire and yes, with its distractions and advertisements popping up every few seconds makes it behave like a spoiled grotesque child with ADHD. But it's the media era and there are no nights where we all gather around the PC and listen to a speech from our fearless leader with our thoughts on a unified nation, saying we will fight them on the beaches, unless of course it was a text message and it's referring to Cronulla. I'm happy with the pop up, drop down, minimise world we live in, and I can still find time to stop and smell the roses - I think they're growing in my inbox.