It’s hard to imagine not surfing the Internet, blogging or sending emails today. The news is just too compelling.
For the first time since the Great Depression, the government has bailed out a top U.S. bank. The move could ripple throughout the economy, and that means everything from stock holdings to job security will be on the line for many Americans.
How can you not want to use all the technology available to keep on top of the ups and downs?
But, if you want to be productive in your job or focus on building your career, you might want to power off.
My column today on MSNBC.com deals with data overload. Most of us have it and we’re doing little about it.
We’re like techno drug addicts waiting for our next cyber fix. I admit it. I can’t even leave the house to pick up my kids at the bus stop without my damn Iphone. I have to keep checking my emails, or surf the Net for the latest news.
Alas, this is all busy work and I’m really not accomplishing anything at all. (I’m definitely not concentrating on my kids at that moment, that’s for sure. Here I am trying to do as much work as possible via my iPhone so I have time to help my kids with homework. But when I get back home I have to run up to my office and attend to emails and all the supposed critical fires I need to put out.)
A few smart worker bees out there have already realized all the information is like the ice cream in a Screwball. Remember those? 
The Good Humor guy sold them. They were in a cone shaped container and there was bubblegum at the bottom. The bubblegum was the best part of the thing, but you had to spend all that time eating the mediocre ice cream, aka technology, to get to the gum, aka the meat of the matter.
These insightful souls, I’ll call them Screwballs, are taking time off from the cell phones and emails to boost their productivity. And, it’s working.
Are you guys overloaded? What have you done about it?
March 18th, 2008 at 3:04 am
Any one of us over 40 can recall a time if you had more than one telephone in your house, you were wealthy. A tv in your bedroom, man keep dreaming. How about going to your friends house and everyone was amazed at watching a square ball bounce between two lines, Pong was the way of the future. Remember the ‘peacock’ and something like ‘the folowing program is broadcast in living color’, man amazing. I remember in the late seventies, working at Sears. I had to go to a huge book and find a product to quote a price on the phone that had a dial and blinking buttons. During inventory, the supervisor had a 7 x 7 floppy that he put into the ‘computer’, you know the one with the 8″ screen. And then to our amazement he would punch in the product number and the inventory amount we counted. It took him weeks to put it all in there, but that was his job. I can still remember thinking what a wonderful time we are living in. Sometimes, rarely mind you, I wonder how we did it before computers. As I get older, as a man who just turned 47 on March 9, I know the best is yet to come. Nothing beats a home cooked meal. Nothing can compare to watching the small bunnies jump around in your grass while looking out your window. No feeling can make you feel so good as to watch the fire crackle in your fireplace with no other lights on, except for that warm, trembling embrace….UNTIL the flying Chevy drives by…..what a wonderful time we live in.