The internet has to be the greatest distraction that was ever created. I mean, computers are bad enough on their own, but no, it had to get taken another step further and be connected to everything else!

Take now for example, I currently have 72 web pages open on different tabs in 7 separate browser windows. I have spoken to 7 different people on MSN today, 3 of which I’m still speaking to, not to mention the 22 online right now that I could talk to. I have my phone plugged into my computer and has been getting text messages throughout the day (when MSN doesn’t seem to work!). Then there is Outlook constantly checking my emails and my RSS feeds .I think it has been about 20 emails today so far, although 3 were duplicates from the same person who for some reason known best only to themselves they thought they should send me the same email to 3 different accounts of mine.

Then there is Facebook! Now don’t get me started on that. As great a thing as it may be, and as much as I love it to bits, it doesn’t half eat up my time. Yes, I now know my friend who crashed his car the other day has not written it off as he suspected, I also know someone is going to bake a cake tomorrow, that it’s snowing in Colorado right now and that Crawley cinema has 7 tills with not enough staff… all of these from my friends statuses (or is it stati? That would fit with the iWorld we seem to live in (god I hate that!)) But is all of this information (relevant or not) really worth me refreshing the page every 10mins that I’m online. I can’t help it now, it has become an addiction!

Unfortunately I am left with a bit of a problem here. I can complain all I like about how I’m “too connected” with the world and how I’m becoming addicted to the instant source of information I have before me, but as soon as the power goes down I’m like a crack addict who can’t get a fix! I connect up on my phone instead, I use the mobile version of Facebook, and I check my emails almost as often.

There is of course a very simple reason for this. I now rely on this stuff. Of the people who I have talked to on MSN today, one is Cornwall, another is Brighton, one in London, 2 just outside London, another in the USA and I don’t even know where the final person is! I haven’t seen my girlfriend in almost 2 weeks (not that I’m counting) but I’ve talked to her in one form or another almost every day (and the ones I didn’t she was out of the country).

There is always a lot of talk about what we call “social networking sites” such as Facebook, Myspace, Bebo etc and how people can’t get enough of them. I’m not sure people are addicted to these sites, nor are the so called “crack-berry’s” really addicted to their blackberry phones, I think we are addicted to other people and now that information is just getting quicker and quicker and so we are expecting it faster all the time.