I'm going on a diet.
And no, it isn't the Lemon Detox or a powdery meal-replacement endorsed by Biggest Loser alumni. This diet is called Cyber Slim, and it has a very simple premise.
Low gigabytes.
You see when it comes to internet usage; I've become a glutinous pig. My habits have grown from the occasional email and news wire check, to compulsive, nonstop feedings that start at breakfast and end moments before I go to sleep. In fact, after some particularly lengthy sessions, I have to flop back on the couch and pop my top button open to breathe.
It's pure greed. Fuelling my insatiable appetite for anything from breaking news and emails, to blogs, Facebook, Twitter, music downloads, celebrity gossip, special offers and holidays I can't afford. You name it - I'm all over it like a $2 cyber hooker.
But I'm not alone - this internet gluttony is an over-indulgence shared by many. We all have friends who are eternally online, and I'll bet I'm not the only one whose knee-jerk reaction is generally wow such and such should get a life. Yet we fail to draw the obvious parallel that we're always online to catch them.
Although I've recently noticed a trend at social events where some turn their nose up at being online. You know the type, people who claim they haven't seen this or that status update because they're far too busy and important for such trivial matters. When in all likelihood they're running to the loo to like, tweet or re-tweet something every five minutes. He who doth protested too much, no?
But I realised just how dire things had become when I started hiding my online presence. Offline on Facebook, invisible on Gmail or away on Skype - yet still very much online. On its own not such a big deal? But last night a close friend living o/s logged into Skype on the rare occasion I was 'available' and within seconds an incoming call flashed up. Shit, hide! I thought, frantically logging out. I don't want to have an actual conversation!
I know what you're thinking. I mustn’t really like said friend, right? Well that couldn't be further from the truth. So as I sat guilty on the couch I wondered - if I don't actually want to talk to people, what the hell was I doing on Skype? Was I no better than some common voyeur, lying in wait to make sure my friends and family were what - still alive? Did I simply want to prove that I was alive too?
I suddenly realised that I'd been bouncing around these sites so habitually, that I’d actually forgotten their purpose. Skype is for phone calls and talking to people. And to make matters worse, I had been perfectly content to skulk around offline, reading things about people and leering at their photos, than I was to actually speak to them.
It finally occurred to me that a greater force than I was at play here and - like so many others - I'd simply fallen into its sticky trap.
FOMO. Fear of missing out. A social phenomenon that has existed to some degree for centuries, but here in the 21st century, has found its perfect breeding ground in the internet.
While there are doers and doubters, haves and have-nots, or quite simply the cool and uncool, there will always be FOMO. But in the old pre-internet days, if I wasn't invited to a party my initial thought would probably be - maybe they lost my address? And I could sleep at night, safe in the assumption that some external factor had intervened.
But not these days. If I log into Facebook and see that 67 friends are invited to a party, and no corresponding invite is waiting on my home page - there's nowhere to hide. I am simply not invited. (And somewhere behind the screen there are little Facebook minions pointing and cacking themselves laughing I'm sure).
But it's not just invites. I, we, we're all addicted to updates of any kind. Like when I'm bored at work and check Gmail 27 times a day. What do I expect? A long lost relative to email and say I'm entitled to a lazy few million in inheritance or a country estate? Because it would be good news, surely?
I think that as a society we've been rewired to need new information at regular intervals or we start twitching - which explains why breaking news FOMO is now more prevalent because of the internet. In my office it's like a daily battle to see who breaks the most sensational headlines first.
Trust me, one day that annoying colleague is going to turn around and say 'Oh my god they just cured cancer!' and we'll all be slapping our legs under the desk, thinking damn I wish I'd seen that first.
