Sara Duff
Keeping Tabs
So I see that you’re on the internet right now. Could you tell me about that? Like, how many tabs have you got opened up? Do these tabs share anything in common, or are they sporadic like polka dots?
Usually my tabs are more like zig zags, following a few thoughts simultaneously. That’s something humans lately are getting great at—diversified attention span, following several thoughts at once by quickly alternating between them. I wonder, did we always think this way or were we inspired by binary code? Does it ever make you feel fragmented, to have so many thoughts open at once?
Hey while you’re online, could you run a quick image search for “dendrites?” Great. Now choose your favorite dendrite and count its branches. Is your number of open tabs greater or less than that number? If greater, please close tabs until you have equal or fewer tabs than dendrite branches.
If you hated that exercise, or if you simply were not in the mood to complete it, then now might not be a good time for you to read this story. Just press X and I’ll go pft. No more noise. If you find that you’re unsure or ambivalent about whether to continue, here are some sample questions to help you decide:
OK, by now you should have enough data to decide whether or not you feel like reading this particular brand of nonsense. If you’ve decided not to read further, please have a lovely time traveling around the internet. I hope to run into you again someday.
For those of you still here, I’m sorry for the bombardment back there. If you’re feeling frazzled, let me recommend a soothing song. Sometimes, when I’m feeling overwhelmed about how huge the human world has gotten, I like to play this song on repeat and sit inside a closet—a microenvironment where I have full control over all lights and sound. I recommend it. In a room that’s not much larger than one person, it’s possible to forget about the size of the universe and the comparative insignificance of a single human being.
While it’s overwhelming, I still find myself being drawn to the internet. My problems typically come from compulsively checking email/social media, comparing myself to others, or wasting time. To cope, I have put myself on a wireless-ness program.
Step 1: Choose one or two days each week to stay offline.
Step 2: Don’t get online on those days.
If you don’t remember the last day you stayed off the internet by your own choice, then you might consider this two-step program. Here’s a tip: most computers have a switch on the front of them, or a setting in the control panel, where you can turn off its wireless. Try that. Then later, if by some impulse you click the internet button, the computer will use an error message to tell you, “No.” My favorite error message is on Google Chrome’s browser because it shows a picture of a dinosaur saying, “Unable to Connect to the Internet.” The dinosaur isn’t trying to alienate himself from society—he’s simply unable to connect. It’s also just a fun picture because that dinosaur is a pretty cute guy.
Here’s another trick to staying offline: use a memo pad to write down all the things that you’d normally lookup instantly. (I had a good friend in college who taught me this and, like the cartoon dinosaur he’s also a pretty cute guy.) After some time passes, you can Google your list all at once. And after even more time passes, you’ll have a whole memo pad full of tidbits and questions.
I know how tempting it can be to just look up one thing real quick, but one thing links to another. For example, say your dog has been having a lot of diarrhea lately. Well, you might want to do a search about that. Your search would suggest dog food as a possible cause, so you might skim an article and then read this comment section:
HLPeabody: YOU ARE SLOWLY KILLING YOUR DOG IF YOU FEED HIM GRAIN-BASED DOG-FOOD! Dogs are NOT meant to digest complex grains like rice and if you feed your dog grains, you are slowly poisoning your own animal! With that said, no diet will help a canine that has been badly bred. Same goes for humans.
Unknown: This website advertised itself as a free site but when I registered then said I must pay $30 to read the articles. This is false advertising and I would like to take myself off of this email list. Please remove my email from your website.
Supermom5000: I know that this article recommends meat-based food for dogs in general, but what would you specifically feed a 9 year old Bishon Frise who is recovering from giardiasis?
Dogsbestfriend12: I STRONGLY disagree with HL Peabody’s post. The only true choice is a raw food diet. For five years I’ve been feeding my Standard Poodle, Dylan, a combination of eggs, sardines, and bison meat. And he couldn’t be healthier! Furthermore, I would like to point out that dog food was not manufactured until the Korean War, when canned horse meat was created to insure a constant source of food for dogs in the battlefield.
Cynthies;): I have a 4.8 lb Chiahua and feed her canned dog food and she LOVES it! Has got hourglass figure. Highly recommend it to any body w/ Chiahua
Russel1956: I concur with the gentleman stating that this site advertises falsely.
Supermom5000: DO YOU REFUSE TO RESPOND TO POSTS???????????? I AM A NEW SUBSCRIBER WHO JOINED SPECIFICALLY TO DETERMINE WHAT TO FEED MY 9 YEAR OLD BISHON FRISE WHO IS RECOVERING FROM GIARDIASIS.
So, how might the above information help your dog’s intestinal problems?
The abbreviation TMI spread quickly for a reason. These days, we often struggle with too much information. And to complicate things, false information can easily be given equal weight as true information. For instance, the above factoid about dog food in the Korean War is not true.
Also, have you ever heard that people swallow eight spiders every year in their sleep? Two years ago, I heard that this fact was made up as part of a sociological study to see how quickly false information could travel through the internet. By the time I’d googled it, I’d already told at least twenty people this news. The Google confirmed that the spider part is a myth, but the social experiment goes unproved since the original website, created in the 1990’s, has disappeared from the World Wide Web.
We tend to focus on the permanence of the internet—how it automatically creates a record of every post and every photo—but in reality, its ecosystem digests us fairly quickly. Have you ever had a Facebook friend die and if so, did you notice what happened to their page? A flurry of activity, then only occasional haunting . . . To me, the idea of getting lost in the noise feels spookier than the possibility of a shadowy government figure monitoring my every online action. The second possibility is flattering, really, but I can’t imagine who would have the time. How long would it take for a single person to read all of the tweets in the world from just one day?
Imagine biking through a crowded park and above everyone’s head, there’s a thought bubble. You bike past hundreds of people and the words on all their thought bubbles keep changing, sporadically. It is so much information that to process it all completely, you’ll either fall off your bicycle or go insane.
It’s strange to have access to such a world but even stranger to imagine the world before it. I remember the moment I learned about the existence of the internet. I was eight. I didn’t understand the concept and I don’t think the teacher explaining it to me did, either. “It’s so that all the computers in the world can connect to each other,” she said. “Also, there are websites that you can go to.”
To this day, I don’t understand much more than that, but I think it’s amazing how quickly we’ve adapted to it. And in a way, we co-evolve with it as it grows. For example when QR codes first appeared, I once saw a lady get off of a bus, walk to the back of a stop sign, point her phone at a blurb, and walk away. It was mystifying and within weeks, those blurbs were everywhere. Imagine how overwhelmed I was to learn that they were real life hyperlinks! Almost instantly, the internet had invaded the physical world.
I’m not trying to scare anyone, here. I know that the internet isn’t just some Godzilla, controlled by the momentary thoughts and feelings of billions of people. It’s a great development for human-kind and we should all use it—hey, we’re using it right now! But considering the fast metabolism of the online world, and the mass of information out there, I think it’s important that we sometimes slow down and ask questions. And I know you’re most likely tired of questions by now, but I only have three more, total:
If you still have the dendrite tab open (and if you enjoyed this particular brand of nonsense) then you might make it your desktop background. Think of it as a dream-catcher for the digital realm, to ward off distraction.
Usually my tabs are more like zig zags, following a few thoughts simultaneously. That’s something humans lately are getting great at—diversified attention span, following several thoughts at once by quickly alternating between them. I wonder, did we always think this way or were we inspired by binary code? Does it ever make you feel fragmented, to have so many thoughts open at once?
Hey while you’re online, could you run a quick image search for “dendrites?” Great. Now choose your favorite dendrite and count its branches. Is your number of open tabs greater or less than that number? If greater, please close tabs until you have equal or fewer tabs than dendrite branches.
If you hated that exercise, or if you simply were not in the mood to complete it, then now might not be a good time for you to read this story. Just press X and I’ll go pft. No more noise. If you find that you’re unsure or ambivalent about whether to continue, here are some sample questions to help you decide:
- When was the last time you went a whole day without getting online?
- Did you forbid yourself, or did you just not happen to log on?
- Do you think the internet ever Googles itself?
- How often do you think of websites as real estate?
- Are hyperlinks actually wormholes? Black holes?
- What’s the density of the internet?
- Do you ever worry about how much time it has taken humans to upload all the information that’s online right now?
- How many cumulative hours do you think it took?
- In the moment it took to estimate it, how much more was uploaded to the internet?
OK, by now you should have enough data to decide whether or not you feel like reading this particular brand of nonsense. If you’ve decided not to read further, please have a lovely time traveling around the internet. I hope to run into you again someday.
For those of you still here, I’m sorry for the bombardment back there. If you’re feeling frazzled, let me recommend a soothing song. Sometimes, when I’m feeling overwhelmed about how huge the human world has gotten, I like to play this song on repeat and sit inside a closet—a microenvironment where I have full control over all lights and sound. I recommend it. In a room that’s not much larger than one person, it’s possible to forget about the size of the universe and the comparative insignificance of a single human being.
While it’s overwhelming, I still find myself being drawn to the internet. My problems typically come from compulsively checking email/social media, comparing myself to others, or wasting time. To cope, I have put myself on a wireless-ness program.
Step 1: Choose one or two days each week to stay offline.
Step 2: Don’t get online on those days.
If you don’t remember the last day you stayed off the internet by your own choice, then you might consider this two-step program. Here’s a tip: most computers have a switch on the front of them, or a setting in the control panel, where you can turn off its wireless. Try that. Then later, if by some impulse you click the internet button, the computer will use an error message to tell you, “No.” My favorite error message is on Google Chrome’s browser because it shows a picture of a dinosaur saying, “Unable to Connect to the Internet.” The dinosaur isn’t trying to alienate himself from society—he’s simply unable to connect. It’s also just a fun picture because that dinosaur is a pretty cute guy.
Here’s another trick to staying offline: use a memo pad to write down all the things that you’d normally lookup instantly. (I had a good friend in college who taught me this and, like the cartoon dinosaur he’s also a pretty cute guy.) After some time passes, you can Google your list all at once. And after even more time passes, you’ll have a whole memo pad full of tidbits and questions.
I know how tempting it can be to just look up one thing real quick, but one thing links to another. For example, say your dog has been having a lot of diarrhea lately. Well, you might want to do a search about that. Your search would suggest dog food as a possible cause, so you might skim an article and then read this comment section:
HLPeabody: YOU ARE SLOWLY KILLING YOUR DOG IF YOU FEED HIM GRAIN-BASED DOG-FOOD! Dogs are NOT meant to digest complex grains like rice and if you feed your dog grains, you are slowly poisoning your own animal! With that said, no diet will help a canine that has been badly bred. Same goes for humans.
Unknown: This website advertised itself as a free site but when I registered then said I must pay $30 to read the articles. This is false advertising and I would like to take myself off of this email list. Please remove my email from your website.
Supermom5000: I know that this article recommends meat-based food for dogs in general, but what would you specifically feed a 9 year old Bishon Frise who is recovering from giardiasis?
Dogsbestfriend12: I STRONGLY disagree with HL Peabody’s post. The only true choice is a raw food diet. For five years I’ve been feeding my Standard Poodle, Dylan, a combination of eggs, sardines, and bison meat. And he couldn’t be healthier! Furthermore, I would like to point out that dog food was not manufactured until the Korean War, when canned horse meat was created to insure a constant source of food for dogs in the battlefield.
Cynthies;): I have a 4.8 lb Chiahua and feed her canned dog food and she LOVES it! Has got hourglass figure. Highly recommend it to any body w/ Chiahua
Russel1956: I concur with the gentleman stating that this site advertises falsely.
Supermom5000: DO YOU REFUSE TO RESPOND TO POSTS???????????? I AM A NEW SUBSCRIBER WHO JOINED SPECIFICALLY TO DETERMINE WHAT TO FEED MY 9 YEAR OLD BISHON FRISE WHO IS RECOVERING FROM GIARDIASIS.
So, how might the above information help your dog’s intestinal problems?
The abbreviation TMI spread quickly for a reason. These days, we often struggle with too much information. And to complicate things, false information can easily be given equal weight as true information. For instance, the above factoid about dog food in the Korean War is not true.
Also, have you ever heard that people swallow eight spiders every year in their sleep? Two years ago, I heard that this fact was made up as part of a sociological study to see how quickly false information could travel through the internet. By the time I’d googled it, I’d already told at least twenty people this news. The Google confirmed that the spider part is a myth, but the social experiment goes unproved since the original website, created in the 1990’s, has disappeared from the World Wide Web.
We tend to focus on the permanence of the internet—how it automatically creates a record of every post and every photo—but in reality, its ecosystem digests us fairly quickly. Have you ever had a Facebook friend die and if so, did you notice what happened to their page? A flurry of activity, then only occasional haunting . . . To me, the idea of getting lost in the noise feels spookier than the possibility of a shadowy government figure monitoring my every online action. The second possibility is flattering, really, but I can’t imagine who would have the time. How long would it take for a single person to read all of the tweets in the world from just one day?
Imagine biking through a crowded park and above everyone’s head, there’s a thought bubble. You bike past hundreds of people and the words on all their thought bubbles keep changing, sporadically. It is so much information that to process it all completely, you’ll either fall off your bicycle or go insane.
It’s strange to have access to such a world but even stranger to imagine the world before it. I remember the moment I learned about the existence of the internet. I was eight. I didn’t understand the concept and I don’t think the teacher explaining it to me did, either. “It’s so that all the computers in the world can connect to each other,” she said. “Also, there are websites that you can go to.”
To this day, I don’t understand much more than that, but I think it’s amazing how quickly we’ve adapted to it. And in a way, we co-evolve with it as it grows. For example when QR codes first appeared, I once saw a lady get off of a bus, walk to the back of a stop sign, point her phone at a blurb, and walk away. It was mystifying and within weeks, those blurbs were everywhere. Imagine how overwhelmed I was to learn that they were real life hyperlinks! Almost instantly, the internet had invaded the physical world.
I’m not trying to scare anyone, here. I know that the internet isn’t just some Godzilla, controlled by the momentary thoughts and feelings of billions of people. It’s a great development for human-kind and we should all use it—hey, we’re using it right now! But considering the fast metabolism of the online world, and the mass of information out there, I think it’s important that we sometimes slow down and ask questions. And I know you’re most likely tired of questions by now, but I only have three more, total:
- How many tabs do you have open right now?
- Has the number changed since the dendrite exercise?
- If so, can you remember opening/closing the tabs, or did it happen on auto-pilot?
If you still have the dendrite tab open (and if you enjoyed this particular brand of nonsense) then you might make it your desktop background. Think of it as a dream-catcher for the digital realm, to ward off distraction.