The tyranny of the computer
I was walloped by a virus last week. It finally passed yesterday, when I could eat something other than toast. I opted for a bagel. No need to get carried away.
It meant that I didn’t write the column for Saturday, and stopped posting on the blog on Friday, and I have to admit that it was great not to have to bother with the computer for a few days. It has a sometimes oppressive grip on me. If I’m not posting on the blog, I’m trying to think of what I’m going to post on the blog, or hunting for something to post. After that I’m checking the comments, which I always like to update as regularly as possible. And then that cycle begins again.
Alongside that, I’ll be tapping into Hype Machine; clicking through Technorati; I’ll be checking personal e-mail, work e-mail, websites, other blogs. I’ll be wondering how I’m doing in the Fantasy Golf Masters Irish Times league (very well, since you ask). Plus, I’m in the middle of writing a book, something for which the web can be both a help and a hindrance.
The computer eats up my time like nothing else. It devours it. It’s a microchipped siren, calling me every time I pass, and I’m too weak to resist.
And here’s the thing: I do not have a MySpace, Bebo or Facebook account. I have never Twittered. I do not Blackberry. I am not Del.icio.us. I will not Digg.
How much time is there in a day that anyone can do all of these? I’m convinced that Damien Mulley, clearly operates in some other dimension, in which mornings last all day and afternoons last a fortnight.
Occasionally, as a journalist, you find yourself wondering how people managed before the internet. All that information they had to go and root out for themselves, through dusty files and inky pages. But sometimes I envy the way that they did not have the tyranny of the computer and had fewer distractions - except, of course, the rush to get for a few lunchtime pints.
I don’t believe I’m alone in this, so here’s an idea that would be unworkable (and smacks of Luddism anyway), but it would be nice if there was some global campaign to switch off all our computers for a day. Not the important ones, obviously: we don’t want nuclear war breaking out simply because I need to get some fresh air. But we could walk away from the non-essential stuff, at least. It would give us all an excuse to walk away for 24 hours, and appreciate a day without this relentless mind pollution. Even if there will always be a few who wouldn’t be able to resist live blogging such an event.
“Occasionally, as a journalist, you find yourself wondering how people managed before the internet.”
Spot on, I often wonder this myself when I am researching some fact or other. Did journalists actually have to GET UP and go to a LIBRARY or something in the old days? Shocking!
Comment by Neill | May 12, 2008 at 11:48 am“Library.” I’ve heard of this word before, Neil. Is it like a giant, paper-filled Wikipedia in a building?
Comment by Shane | May 12, 2008 at 11:52 amBY way of demonstration, when I read you had a virus I of course thought you meant a computer virus.
Comment by Green Ink | May 12, 2008 at 12:45 pmMulley has clones.
When I was working in the city that never wakes as a friend called Boston back in ‘97/98, I was on a course that work provided and the topic of the relentless demands that being online all the time placed on people came up from the locals. Many of them in the 40s and 50s and while I as a hip and happening chino wearing bleeding edger (yes it was true, we thought chinos were being to be the IT dress wear of the future) had no problem with the 24/7 aspect of connectivity, I could sort of see their point about needing some time to actually think before acting.
A comparison was by someone there made with the old style office memo that made its way to you via the internal mail system and how the roundabout route involved gave you time to think about your response - to take time to consider the content if you will. It could take a day for a memo to make it to you, and you could take a while to think about and around the issue, and then send it back. With the email version of the office memo, once people know you had read it, via return receipt they were sending follow-up mails within the hour and chasing you by phone for an answer.
Comment by Dan Sullivan | May 12, 2008 at 1:36 pmDamien Mulley long since stopped being a person, Damien Mulley is now a hippy collective signing off their work as Damien Mulley. Meanwhile the original Damien Mulley is now a pancake flipper in Lemon. And is quite happy.
Comment by Damien Mulley | May 12, 2008 at 1:54 pmWhen I started my professional journalistic career, only ten years ago, there was ONE computer with internet access in the entire Sunday Tribune building and we had to take turns on it. And of course there was far fewer material available online back then anyway. So I had to go to my alma mater, Trinity, and use its copyright library to look up various old interviews and stuff, like in the olden days. My graduate reader’s ticket came in very handy that year…
Comment by Stellanova | May 12, 2008 at 2:12 pmUm, “far less” material, I should say. After ten years of hackery, I seem to be losing my grammar skills as well as my researching abilities…
Comment by Stellanova | May 12, 2008 at 2:14 pmStella, don’t worry about it just like at my doozy “A comparison was by someone there made with the old style office memo”. Very Yoda and ironic given the intent of the comment.
Comment by Dan Sullivan | May 12, 2008 at 3:46 pm“…switch off all our computers…”
What does this mean? I’ve never heard these words before.
Comment by 73man | May 12, 2008 at 4:26 pmGreen Ink - I may have caught it off a computer keyboard.
Dan - Can I send you a memo on that?
Damien - Sounds idyllic.
Stellanova - I used to go to the Ilac library and use its cuttings facility. Its pair of scissors was probably binned about 10 years ago.
73man - It’s kind of like deliberately crashing your computer. Or deliberately pouring coffee over the hard drive.
Comment by Shane | May 12, 2008 at 4:49 pmShane, as a brand new blogger who is already running the risk of being devoured by the whole thing and feeling a weird need to post about something at least once a day I think your idea is a superb one. Just announce your chosen date and count me in.
Comment by Andrew | May 13, 2008 at 1:03 amI’m typing this with my computer turned off right now. (Hope I’m hitting the right keys.)
Comment by Kid | May 13, 2008 at 8:01 amShane, when I started at the Tribune the paper still had a librarian whose job it was to basically cut out the, well, cuttings and transfer them to microfiche.
In fact, it was all very retro in Tribune Towers back then. Our computers were, and I am not exaggerating, nearly 20 years old (this was in 1998) and were part of a ridiculously outdated production system that by then was only used by one other paper in the world. Their word processing system - classic green lettering on a black screen - didn’t allow you to cut and paste; you could barely delete anything. It was easier to just write pieces by hand, edit on the page and then type them up very carefully. No one had an e-mail account (except, possibly, the editor). And this state of affairs lasted for at least a year and a half after I arrived! So my initial experience of life in a newspaper was even more retro than it should have been…
Comment by Stellanova | May 13, 2008 at 11:12 am