Saturday, January 4, 2014

Is Information the opium of the masses in 21st century ?

We are getting addicted to information almost non stop 24 by 7, and a large amount of this information is irrelevant to our lives.

Besides unending personal and business emails and latest news from online and TV, we are getting information from social networking sites: 'Which peanut butter sandwich did Michael eat',  'What clothes Kardashian is wearing', 'Hillary and her new haircut', 'What is the latest news in far east', 'Which sports star said what'. Many people also like to play video games almost all the times.

Some people are so addicted to screens that they are even texting and browsing while driving.

New and exciting information, though irrelevant, gives our brains a high, just like other addictions did. We feel we are in control and empowered, though it hardly changes any thing in our lives.

I tried 'Information de-addiction' for a few days by restricting information to only a short window during the whole day, and it was like I was back in 1970s. I definitely felt that I had a different set and level of hormones and the music in my car felt way better and interesting than other days. 



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