Neil Scott

I have decided to go on a diet, an information diet. From this point forth I will avoid news, blogs, social networks, email, radio chat: anything that is unwholesome and which lends itself to distraction. Life is rich enough without having to scour the Guardian football pages for news about thick millionaire sportsmen. Email can be checked once every 24 hours without ever missing out on anything of importance, nobody will lose out from not learning my facebook status every hour, and if I can go to my grave not having to have hear another thing about Madeleine McCann’s disappearance I will be a happy man.

What was life like before the internet became so ubiquitous? It is difficult to remember with any clarity but certain salient memories linger. Life was more ponderous: people read more books, they thought more profound thoughts, poetry was written and read, walking was a time for reflection, and mysteries were ever present. Nowadays, life is ephemeral beyond all measure an mystery is quashed by a quick search on Google or Wikipedia.

Knowledge is a great thing and the internet no doubt facilitates the advancement of learning in some subjects, but the internet mainly leads to distraction, to short-circuits of reaction, to barbaric opinions sent forth in the hope of producing a reaction. A great philosopher once wrote that a thought which you have thought of yourself is worth a thousand you have discovered from reading (ironic, I know). The former is organic, part of your intellectual organism, the latter is just part of a patchwork quilt.

If escaping from information doesn’t sound very attractive why not instead embrace the opportunity to do one thing very well rather than lots of things badly. It is said — according to information, ahem, I read on the internet — that every time you get an email alert your IQ is reduced by 10 points. It is that split second distraction that prepares the brain for some other activity that makes it lose focus.

To understand why information and multitasking are so destructive to thought you have to understand the nature of the brain. Our conscious mind can deal with about 7 bits of information per second - our unconscious deals with aorund 14 million bits of information per second. We all have vast reserves of knowledge waiting to be tapped - if only we could get into a state of flow where all of our resources are aligned in the same direction.

Some people claim to work better when they have a low level noise - whether the TV in the background or music. This makes some sense if we think of the brain being concerned with other things - but ultimately this sounds like some kind of repression. If you have things on your mind that need to be quietened then you aren’t clearing your mind properly in the first place.

Ostensibly, hypertext appears to work like the human mind at its most creative — links from one subject to another create a sense of connection that is both surprising and enlightening. However, human nature is impulsive — and when presented with information becomes delirial at the prospect of being able to indulge. This is madness.

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