How Many Tabs Do You Have Open?

The fact that these days we react to life rather than respond, means that our minds have a gazillion open tabs, all waiting for information in order for us to process and move on to the next piece of information. The ability and necessity of multi tasking means that we spend our lives constantly wondering if we have completed a task or if not which app we have stored our to-do list inside.

Automation has meant the passwords are the gateway to the world. Everything from payment for school dinners, through to bank account access, is protected by a series of numbers and letters, all stored on some other ‘secret tab’ I mean, God help us if we write these things down, because that’s just asking for trouble init? Even more so if we forget the damn things and ‘lock ourselves out’ of that immediately essential bit of technology.

We deal with metaphorical, never ending mountains of dirty washing. Overwhelmingly useless, but captivating information vying for headspace with important stuff and the not so important, but seemingly essential. Often in this household, there are cries of “There’s nothing to eat.” resounding from the kitchen like an accusation, as I frustrate myself with some password, which threatens to abscond, with my sanity, if I can’t remember the correct order of capital and lower case letters necessary to access the damn thing!

There are countless reports detailing the brain fry that ensues from the time we spend online. The time it takes our minds to unwind from a day at the keyboard. In order to switch off and allow our brains to enter into a relaxed state for sleep, most studies suggest that we unplug at least an hour before bed time. Yet how many of us use our phones as alarms, have a cheeky instagram scroll, check Facebook, Twitter and Email just one last time before switching off the light?

How many of us, reach for our phones immediately upon waking, wondering what on earth has happened in a world without our ‘eyes on’ presence for 7 hours?

This idea of being always available, always contactable, always on show, is exhausting. Awaiting the next ‘selfie’ or matching yourself against the “Nordic” filter of an unknown Instagram feed, benchmarking your social life and feeling inadequate, against those ‘Celebrating, Meeting, Attending or Drinking’ on Facebook.

Or perhaps we are left thinking, if we are maintaining the technology or the technology is maintaining us? It all just becomes one enormous ball of frustration and I’m wondering if days weren’t easier when 2p made a phone call and we wrote important information on a list, keeping it in a diary if it was really vital and nights out involved meeting under The Town Clock with the events committed to memory rather than an online photo album shared with ‘friends of friends.

Worth a thought?