My avowed distrust of the internet feels perennial, but likely its roots extend only five years ago. Special ire has been saved for its impact on music, which in hindsight should have been balanced more with discussion of the positives it has had. Anyhow, the topic today is distraction. Even a proto-Luddite as yours truly has problems maintaining focus when browsing. Every article, every website is merely an obstacle that prevents me from reading the next thing on my queue. It speaks in part to the banality of most of it - were it really deep and serious, I'd like to think I'd zone in and concentrate on it. But there are several instances when the material is, in objective terms, interesting, and yet is still met with apathy after a few minutes. I remember reading an article on the subject that mentioned the perennial sense of something better being around the corner. Why waste time reading/watching this nonsense when I'm missing out on what I really want to be doing? Of course it ultimately amounts to nought, and one feels permanently dissatisfied. I find this distraction most prominent in my morning news scan - I think the feeling is that there are so many things I want to read, and I need to cram them all into a half hour. On days like this, it feels horrible having gone through six or seven sites but having spent maybe a couple of minutes on each. Lack of time is cited as a common problem, but a better solution must be devoting time to what makes one really truly tick. A mild retraining of the brain is probably what is needed, but that's no easy feat. I would venture to suggest that another strategy, unpopular though it may be, is finding other ways of occupying time. As always, the intent is there, but the action is as ever solely missing.