Information overload
Being hooked to the internet means that we can, at any point in the day, get info on pretty much everything. Ranging from a recipe on how to bake a cheesecake, to insights into what life was like in 1000BC.
If you were to ask me for an opinion on this 20 years ago, I'd be mindblown by the concept of it.
Since I was a kid, I had this urge to consume information/knowledge. I read encyclopedias, books, newspapers, etc. That led me to becoming slightly more intelligent than my classmates back in school.
Judged by that endeavor, it feels like no harm is done by consuming that much information.
But, here's the kicker. I'd say that the amount of information I consumed via those sources in a single year was approx. 1/100th of what I consume in a year right now, via the world wide web.
Not just that, but I consume chunks on information, rather than the whole pictures. To paint an example; if I were to compare the amount of stuff I learned about airplanes while reading an encyclopedia as a kid with the amount I learned by going through a couple of rabbit holes on the internet recently, the difference is staggering.
Why could this be?
I'd say there are two reasons.
The first reason is that, when browsing the web, I tend to do a lot of context switching, jumping from one source, to the other. From one tab, to the next. Constantly consuming different opinions from different people, without the ability of forming one on my own.
The second reason is that, when browsing the web, my mind is in overload. Picking up one thing after the other, like a laser gun eliminating countless blobs of thoughts coming towards it.
That's not good.
Now that I've identified the amount of time I waste by constantly going through rabbit holes, I need to become more mindful when consuming knowledge/information.
Rather than using my mind as a laser gun, I should use it as a vehicle inspection station.
A car arrives and it has my undivided attention. I take the next 30-60 minutes, I go around the car, I go underneath the car, I go inside the car and I look, I think, I analyze. I soak in everything I see and feel and then, at the end of it, I take a piece of paper and put down my thoughts.
That's how I want to learn & observe.