The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is reach out bleary eyed for the iPhone on my bedside. The second thing I do is hit the Twitter app icon, and click on ‘trends’.
There is no better way to re-engage your brain with wakefulness than looking at random words on a list and trying to figure out if something significant has happened in the world while you were sleeping.
There’s a technique to trend searching. The key is to filter out the gobbledegook of inane Twitter word games and scan for familiar terms, normally the name of a person or a place. Anything with RIP is a dead give away. Boom boom.
I’m not sure if it’s normal to search Twitter trends for obituaries first thing in the morning, but I’m a creature of habit and this is now very much part of my daily routine. This waking ritual is followed by a conglomerate of other online habits that have crept into my my life only to take residence.
According to an article published last month by Amanda MacMillan on CNNHealth.com, although not an official diagnosis, Internet addiction usually includes symptoms such as:
“spending a lot of time on the Internet (especially more time than intended), an inability to cut back on usage, a preoccupation with online activities, and symptoms of withdrawal such as anxiety, boredom, or irritability after a few days of not going online.”
A few days of not going online? In this superfast-and-always-on life where constant, instant connectivity & overstimulation are the norm – the very idea of not being online is enough to cause me to break out in a cold sweat & hives.
And besides, how else would I find out who died in the night.
Image: Internet Addict
By husin.sani available under a Creative Commons Attribution license
About Gina Romero
