Ditching the Internet addiction

This spring slump hit me hard. No matter how much I have tried to work, my attention span has disappeared faster than a Tabard lunch box.

However, I have found the solution to the massive procrastination outbreak that peaks on campus around now: Stop doing stupid things on the Internet.

When we turn on our computers, we all tend to follow a silly routine.

First, we sign onto AIM. Then we check our multiple e-mail accounts, followed by a list of Web sites that we will probably look at several times a day. Whenever we get assignments that we don't want to do, we spend even more time cycling through this "silly list" of Internet distractions.

"When I decide after 10 minutes of work that I need a break, my newest Internet thing is to play Mario Brothers online," College senior Johnna Daniels said.

"Or, whenever I feel really down about my work, I go to Iloveegg.com and listen to the 'I Love Egg' song."

My personal "silly list" includes about half a dozen news Web sites and a political message board. As I began getting paper assignments a few weeks ago, I got an RSS reader so that I could distract myself with another half-dozen news Web sites at once.

I also started checking out the English-language Web site and message forum of Islamist radicals based on the United Kingdom.

I'm not an Islamic radical in the United Kingdom. Still, the Web site was definitely more interesting than my work or Facebook.com.

Oh, I also check out Facebook a lot.

With the CIA bugging my computer because of my taste for radical message boards, a paper I had due last week turned into a 72-hour ordeal.

Every bitter sentence I wrote felt like an accomplishment. Thus, I "rewarded" myself after every sentence by wasting half an hour going through my silly list of procrastination Web sites.

Then, last Tuesday, the Internet broke at my off-campus house.

I spent days hopping between hotspots like an Ivy League hobo. If it was too late to go to the library, I went to my girlfriend's house to leech off her Internet.

She obviously wanted to ask why there were radical Islamic Web sites on my screen, but she kept quiet as I cycled through my silly list.

After a few days, I realized that I am an addict.

Unfortunately, the Internet addiction isn't unique to college students.

A survey conducted a few months ago by America Online and Salary.com found that American workers admitted to wasting about 2.09 hours every day on the Internet while at the office.

This waste of working hours is costing employers about $759 billion per year.

A breakdown of the figures suggests that the amount of time wasted on the Internet increases with younger worker cohorts. Our generation wastes over three times as much time online at the office than our parents' generation.

Employers are now discovering what Johnna Daniels concluded a long time ago: "The Internet is a great tool, but at the same time, there are so many ways to use it for inane purposes."

If our generation keeps bringing our Internet habits into the workplace, we won't last very long.

Let's try and break the addiction before we graduate.

The vast majority of Penn students were extremely hard workers in high school. However, with high-speed Internet in our rooms all the time, it's become easy to let the Internet exacerbate our spring slump.

Once I realized that I was an addict, I was able to stop hunting for hotspots, sit in my Internet-deprived room and get a lot of work done.

Whenever the Internet gods fix my house Internet, I am just going to disconnect it for most of the day.

Instead of putting up an away message claiming that you're working, just unplug from the Internet for a few hours each day.

You'll get a lot more done and your attention span will come back to you. Unlike those Tabard lunchboxes.

If it doesn't work, you can write me an angry e-mail. But I might not get it for a few days.

Eric Obenzinger is a junior history major from New York. Quaker Shaker appears on Wednesdays.

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