Meeting myself in Internet addiction
The never-ending joints of Information that
soothe,
paralyze,
make you forget what you were trying so hard to remember.
When the seductive buzz of the phone shatters
your already truncated attention,
a remote control is no longer needed for mind control.
“I don’t watch TV anymore,” you pronounce proudly,
as the tube grows ever closer to your body,
as you flick from CATastrophe to cat GIF,
from Tinder to Ten Things You’re Doing Wrong With Your Laundry.
The Feed buzzes,
draws you deeper into its Net,
hooks you one hyperbolic headline after the next,
while your slowly mounting anxiety just wants to know:
“When do I find out that I’m alright?”
You persist, pouring the sincerity
you were going to use for reading that book,
writing that story,
playing that piano,
to find out if Someone Else has already lived your life,
and can tell you exactly what it’s like,
and all the things you could still do wrong.
Did you know that Attention
is the highest trading currency of the web domain?
What you invest it in goes viral,
and what you withdraw it from
expires as a dead link.
“But just one more,” you plead,
you reassure yourself,
“The answers must lie in the next window!”
You hoard Information in your Tabbed Browser,
a Curator of Artificial Artifacts.
You adorn yourself with HTTP trinkets
from the World Wide Wasteland.
The first to hold up some plastic gem can proclaim
“I’ve found something special!
Now Bejewel me with your Thumbs of Approval!
Affirm that my Cyberjunk peddling is worth the energy
I would have spent living IRL.”
But the diamond that will change everything is there,
deep in the heap, to be found by the persistent ones.
It could be … in the next click.
We Prospectors of Truth pan for Golden Meaning
in a Stream of Virtual Jetsam,
forgetting that
The First Hallmark of Addictive Behaviour —
Interference with Regular Activities —
is programmed right into the Code of your Click-based Quest.
You mistake deep loneliness for Modern Solitude.
You would rather send a stream of cartoon hieroglyphs
than construct a complete sentence with punctuation.
What does it take to surface from the ocean of Information
before you drown from a head heavy with a thousand virtual voices
all shouting “This is How to Be a Better You!”
How stoned do you need to be before you reach for
the lucidity of Offline?
How much will you allow the Void to reach inside you
before you step back from the URLedge?
There is a film about a woman driven insane by her ability
to hear the thoughts of others.
I know how she feels —
anyone who Browses knows how she feels.
In the VPN Present, we are all telepaths,
tuned into the broadcasted thoughts of the world,
unable to turn away for fascination,
curiosity,
horror,
and the relief of escaping our own minds
for a Moment-turned-Eternity.
The Infinite Internet has all the patience in the world.
It will calmly, dispassionately deliver you
your next bite of bits, stuffing you beyond
the bandwidth of your brain.
In return, you propagate it,
you share,
approve,
encourage others in their Streamed-in Stupor.
“But we’re supporting each other,”
we whisper, as we finger the Like button.
“Maybe if I tell you I approve of your existence
with my thumb, you’ll tell me the same.”
And we continue clicking, relieved that at least
one other Real Person knows we exist.
The Second Hallmark of an Addict:
“I can stop anytime I want.”
Why not try?
Shut the intelligence of your devices off
in the midst of the Data Hurricane,
and hear how quiet it gets.
See what happens when instead of
turning on the Information Drip
while waiting for your coffee drip,
you read a chapter in your book;
you write down a dream you had
in the Offline night;
you drop your fingers on the keyboard
of the piano.
See what happens when you don’t
feed the Buzz anymore,
when you allow your own thoughts
to surface after being buried under the LANslide.
I hope you know that the figures you put on
your Thumb pedestal would rather take
a real High Five from you any day.
I hope you know that the portal to the world
that counts is not a monitor held in your hand
but a door walked through on your legs.
I hope you know that when your Resolution is high enough,
Clarity is only a click of the Off button away.
For when you gaze long into the Abyss.com,
so gazes It into you.
A poem I wrote while meeting the face of internet addiction.
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