Consuming the Internet. Or getting consumed by the Internet. Which is which, it depends on individuals.
It’s a black hole out there. This thing called the Internet. Nobody wants to venture too far out and get sucked in by the vacuum. We yawn to increase connectivity to everyone out there. We did it, but at the expense of human interaction. A pat on the back is replaced by the “like” button. A firm handshake is taken over by an acceptance of an invite from LinkedIn.
That’s not all. We are literally connected every waking moment. Not physically, but virtually. The level of connectivity is unparalleled to what we have in the past. But we feel empty deep down. We attempt to fill this void by spending more time on things that matter little.
Eventually, there comes a time when everything is enough.
I have come to the realization I don’t want to spend the bulk of my waking moment chasing after the happenings that really, have nothing to do with my life. I don’t want to be so distracted in my life I can’t focus on doing things that I like. Distractions are inevitable so I’m just trying to minimize it.
Right now, I’m biting more than I can chew.
The plate is there. It’s going to keep piling up until I stop scooping the food. By pulling back, you have more control of what goes into your mouth and it gives you time to digest what you have consumed. When you have unlimited servings, the tendency is that you are going to take more, not because it taste good, but because you can. Food becomes a little less meaningful at this point, it becomes less tasty and you are just going through the motions of putting food into your mouth.
That’s what’s happening here, right now.
As we load up the news, we become less informed. Food taste much better with a few selected good quality produces. News are better consumed from the selected few publishers that regularly roll out awesome contents.
Google Reader is shutting down in 2 week. The path ahead is uncertain and I can’t see the horizon beyond the hills. Which other services should I use for my dose of RSS? Should I ditch RSS reading altogether?
I’m contemplating of the latter. Isn’t it better if I can take this opportunity to handpick a few great ones and visit these sites directly for the news?
Perhaps this is too drastic a measure.
Perhaps this is also the reason why I’m sitting on the fence for this issue.