My Beautiful Mind

[Bic-B@ll]

So I’ve been in college for a few years and this semester transferred to another school. I now sit in huge lecture halls and stuff. Anyway, its finals week and being the procrastinator I am, I have to cram about 400 pages of reading, finished a thirty-six page journal on Sunday, and have a five page paper due. I’ve been noticing in class and when doing reading and stuff that I simply can’t focus. It’s been getting worse over the past couple of years. I’ll sit in class, look at the professor and then think about any random thing. I’ll think about random shit all class and if I’m lucky hear 4 words from the professor. I think sitting far back in a huge stadium lecture hall contributes to this but there is an underlying problem. I used to read books but haven’t in a while; when I read the ones for class, although dry as hell, I can’t focus for shit. Just like in class I’ll read something and then my mind wanders. I have to go back and reread the section, sometimes several times.

I legitimately think that the root of this problem stems from my computer usage. I’ve used it daily and frequently since I’ve been able to walk. When I was in elementary school I played Counter-Strike all day, when I got a bit older I talked on forums and did some Half-Life mapping and played some console games. As I got older I got a laptop and could use the computer anywhere, plus I had a cell phone to txt on and play Tetris. I had a job for about two years and that suppressed my usage. When I did use the computer it was usually on the couch watching TV; I’d take hours to watch one 30 minute Daily Show because I’d pause it to read stuff on the internet. Now I’m away at college in a dorm with no job, no television, and once again spend copious amounts of time on the internet. My current trends are Digg, IRC, AIM, Facebook, 4 forums, and all the RSS feed on my iGoogle page. While my usage obviously is excessive spelling it out like that makes it seem really bad, I’d like to assure you that I do have friends, am not fat, do leave my room, do go out, and when I was at home rode a bicycle daily.

For those of you who focus as bad as me and are scared of the wall of text, I'll break it up with a silly picture.

The way I browse Digg and the forums is to open whatever I find interesting in new tabs and quickly scan through each tab for a few seconds and read what I want. I read a few comments too. The point of all this explanation is that I think the quantity and type of usage has altered me mentally. I think in quick thoughts like a scatterbrain, I’m all over the place, on a new news article every 2 seconds, alt-tabbing, chatting etc. If you apply that to real life, that’s how I act when in class and reading. To compound it, when I have to do work I’ll do a bit and then hop on the computer; on top of making me not think straight, it distracts me. It’s hard to say it’s an addiction, but it probably is.

Today I had 274 pages of business law to read, possibly the most boring thing ever. After doing the typical read and inch and then hop in IRC for half an hour, someone I know came in my room. I asked him about the Adderall he takes and tried one for myself (I’m not sure if this is going upset/offend anyone, but I don’t really care). It took quite some time to kick in but eventually I closed the blinds, closed the door, dismantled the laptop and hid it in a drawer, turned off the phone, turned off the music, turned a fan on for a little white noise and started reading. I soon realized that reading out loud helped me focus immensely. For 14 hours I read that damn textbook out loud and just finished.

So what I really want to know besides reactions is if anyone else can see a relationship between the way their (or anyone’s) brain/mind/thoughts/focus is affected by their computer/internet usage. I haven’t looked into any type of research on the matter, but I’d be surprised if there aren’t scientific studies linking the two. School is over next Wednesday and I’ve got a month off. I’m going to make a conscious effort to cut computer usage back very drastically. Things like reading books, taking the dog for walks, watching some TV shows straight through, going snowboarding…any activity like that to help redeem my concentration. I don’t want to say it’s destroying my life, but I can’t continue in college like this and I don’t want to be like this for the rest of my life. I feel like I need to do something about it and cutting back/stopping is clearly the answer. I don’t want to be one of those kids who throws “ADD” or “ADHD” around because they think it’s funny or something but I’d be surprised if I didn’t have some of both. I don’t want to be medicated though. Just something I wanted to get off my chest and it came to a huge point today.

/longest post I've never made on Mapcore

[Cybbe]

I can definitely see and feel all of those points you've just made. I have it a lot the same way, and while I believe part of it stems from my own excessive computer usage, I also feel it might be stress related. I'm having a hard time focusing and concentrating, in class, when doing homework, and a lot of other things. However, I don't have these issues when I sit back and play guitar or start drawing or anything else that I find is stress relieving. I think it's pretty natural to reach this point at times.. I don't know, but I think so. In my case, I think, while I have a hard time focusing, maybe I'm just losing sight of my goal and losing interest on top of everything taking a lot more effort than any educational thing I've attended before.

I think you're partly right, though. I'm not a slave to news in any way - I hate news and refuse to read, watch or hear it because it really does nothing for me. Most of it's bad and if I had to take a stand on every bad thing happening in the world I'd go insane. But I do use a lot of time surfing mapcore.net and facebook. I've recently dropped IRC (I'm sure some of you have noticed. If not, I'm kinda sad ). This was initially because I reformatted and hadn't gotten around to reinstall it, but I've known for a while now I really don't have time for it - especially not the way I use it. I've always had it running on top on my second monitor for quick access, and it's a huge distraction. I think getting rid of it has helped, yet I have an exam tomorrow and here I am posting in this thread instead of reading up. With everything being so available and things happening around us so fast and so frequently, I think it's essential we need to know how to limit and restrain ourselves so that we can use these things as tools for productivity and save the recreational part of it for later. It's just gotten harder as the line between those two things have become thinner and thinner. I think it's actually gotten harder to study as more and more educations require you to have and operate a computer to do your work, as it's a multimedia and can - and will - be used for a lot of other things at the same time. Having a clear focus becomes harder.

But as I said earlier, I'd like to think stress has a lot to do with it too. But I definitely don't think the computer helps at all.

I'd still like to claim music helps me be more productive, but the fact probably is that it doesn't. It does, however, relax me, and I find that's important too.

[EDIT]

[Bic-B@ll]

I like the guitar idea, my brother has one that I can pick up and learn, and I’ve always wanted to, but I’ve been too lazy. Problem is that I'd hop online to learn how to play and end up surfing the web for 12 hours with a guitar in my lap. It's something I can take back to the dorms though which is cool. I see what you're saying about losing interest and I'm definitely there, I'm taking classes on the atmosphere, business law, economics, and American literary history. Two of them are three hours long and they’re all beyond dry. However, I've always been able to pay attention in school. I never really did homework or studied but just always went to class and paid attention and did rather well in school. Luckily, my grades aren't suffering currently, well, as far as I know.

I'm no slave to news, I have a few RSS feeds but only read things that peak my interest or are big stuff (F/18 crash ). A lot of it is technology stuff. I don't know if you've ever been on Digg but it's a stockpile of funny, interesting, creative etc type things that can keep you occupied for a long time. Maybe you should stay away if you're like me. I too used to have IRC on my second monitor to be a constant distraction. I only have my laptop at school but IRC is open as long as my computer is on.

I'm not sure if I can call it an issue, but it's like there isn't much to do in society as a whole. You can only go out drinking or something so often. I spend hours in other people’s rooms, yet I still have tons of free time. Bowling and such isn't going to touch it. The internet and video games and such are always there easily accessible to entertain you. Combining the computer and education is absolutely a huge issue for me; how the hell am I supposed to concentrate on my paper in Word with people IMing me, people chatting on IRC and the internet right there. I have a class that has all its homework on the internet, it's awful. I think it's almost an unrealized society issue, technology is great and all but we use it all day and it takes away from socializing and normal interaction or even stuff like reading actual things.

As for music, I love music, it's playing all day. The right kind can relax me and I listen to while studying, especially acoustic or instrumental stuff. But I don't find it very relevant, if anything it helps in shutting the environment out.

[Cybbe]

Not to forget mentioning the time you spent waiting for someone to reply on your thread. Don't even try to deny it, I know you did. I know I often do, anyway Anyway, maybe I should do what I should have done a long time ago.. I've downloaded all I need to continue studying, so I'm gonna close off firefox, outlook, MSN messenger and whatever else is keeping me busy and start focusing. I have 13 weeks of stuff I need to learn - today. Here's hoping the next semester will be better if I put an effort. Nice to know I'm not alone about this though

[Bic-B@ll]

I was on Facebook between refreshes (omg new friend ). Putting the computer away is key. When I started reading I had Pandora playing some music and I could see the IMs popping up and had to reply, within the first 20 minutes I ventured onto IRC and had an hour long chat about I don't even remember what. Even if I turned it off it would still be there haunting me. I literally tore all the cables out and hid it in my dresser 'till I was done. I was ready to hand it to my roommate and tell him to not let me use it. I think I'm going to start going to the exercise room and riding the bike and running on the treadmill a bit, physical activity is supposed to help mental stuff too. I do a lot of sitting around now-a-days. I think the best course action is alternative activities; it doesn't help that is like 4 degrees out, but just about anything is better, guitar is a legitimately excellent one.

[Psy]

Not to forget mentioning the time you spent waiting for someone to reply on your thread. Don't even try to deny it, I know you did.

Yes. This is exactly what I do.

Personally I find it very difficult to stop opening up Firefox every 15 minutes and browsing various news sites and forums for about half an hour - checking for any new content/posts. It definitely doesn't help me to get more work done then I'd like to. Now I used to play guitar for 2 hours everyday but over the past year the amount of time dedicated to it has slowly declined and it's certainly something I'd like to get back into as it helps me to concentrate on specific tasks which require a lot of mental persistence and clears my mind of anything internet-related.

It's good to realise that you spend too much time on unnecessary things when there are much more important things to do.

[Bic-B@ll]

That's kinda the issue, there aren't more important things to do, I still haven't gone to sleep

I think next semester I'm going to get a job, I just have far to much free time, I used to enjoy working.

[Warby]

i feel your pain back in high school when i was supposed to read some novel that i didn't care about i would have already after half a sentence forgotten what the sentence is about and needed to repeat read it for 5-10 times. but by contrast reading tutorials and articles about how specific graphics effects in games are achieved i can read those things 24 hours straight with out loosing focus for a second. so because i knew i was like this and that i could never ever CARE about the material being thought in collage i never went to collage. i also try to cut down on the frequent news reading on the internet and get as little distraction as possible from anything while working (on the pc) or doing physical exercise. i do think this kind of internet use shortens your attention span but seriously: "274 pages of business law " teenagers/young adults in places where they cant afford laptops with broadband internet cant read that shit either

here is some stuff that i try to better myself:

-do physical exercise

-make yourself real food

-i did successfully give irc use the boot

-i deleted all my firefox bookmarks for news sites except for penny arcade and kotaku

-i only have 2 forums i check mapcore and polycount (cut down form like 10)

-i close miranda when i do mapping work

-i never have a physical phone hooked in

-my cellphone is never on when i am not on the road and its always set to vibration alert

[Bic-B@ll]

What you’re reading absolutely affects how you read it, but I remember having issues like this when reading Tom Clancy books that I was in to. Don’t worry, 14 hours and I pulled it off…I haven’t gone to sleep yet and the final is in three hours, if I fall asleep I’ll forget everything D:

Exercise is on the list of things to do, there’s a small exercise room in the dorms that I think I’m going to start use the treadmill and bike in.

Making myself food isn’t really an option, I live in a dorm room and am not allowed to even have a microwave. The dining hall doesn’t have great food but I can still get square meals, I’m not big junk food eater.

I don’t know if I could ever part with IRC.

My homepage is like 30 RSS feeds

Of the four forums I visit, only two are active enough for me to post in.

I have my IM boot on start up, but it’s definitely crucial to close while doing any kind of work, I’d end up turning it back on though.

Don’t have a physical phone, but my cell is on me at all times.

I just went to sell my books back and they offered me $118 for $353 worth of books. That's not including the most expensive one that I still need. Pretty pissed about that but I'm going to go to an independent bookstore down the block tomorrow and see if I can get some better prices. Not sure why I wrote this as it's completely irrelevant, but fuck textbooks.

[twiz]

Me too, bic. Me too. In fact, I have my final project for the semester to complete(due yesterday ) and instead I am sitting in my pyjamas and reading this epic long thread. Go me!

I think I have been spoiled my whole life because I am very smart(toot toot horn). I can learn, and especially teach myself, anything I've ever tried to learn in a few hours. I never(zero.) pay attention in class. Sometimes I'll try to make myself, but since I never study or do homework, I always have no idea what the hell the professor is talking about so I just space out and play on my iphone for the rest of class. I really only go to class so I know when the next test or quiz is. The night before the test, usually starting at around 11pm, I'll look up what chapters are going to be on the test, open up the book and a highly caffienated beverage, and learn the material. I've done this since highschool, everything from trigonometry to chemistry to calculus 1 through 3, physics 1 & 2, all my engineering courses(statics, solids, etc), everything. I have *never* consistently studied over an extended period of time for anything, always night-before-the-test cramming. I have a 3.89 gpa, halfway through the mechanical engineering program. My roommate says it does get harder, we'll see.

I always wonder where I would be right now if I actually spent a reasonable amount of time focused on school, as in doing all my homework and studying a bit every night. I know I'd certainly have a 4.0 and would probably be a lot further along in school than I am right now. I'm sure if I spent a few hours each night doing schoolwork I could handle an 18+ hour courseload and maintain a 4.0. But when I can spend 6 or 8 hours studying every month or so and still hold a high-3 gpa, what's the point?

However, when I do find something that interests me(anything truly creative, designing and building anything fascinates me), I can sit and work for hours upon hours until I perfect it. Here's an example, the final project I'm supposed to be doing right now.. a bass guitar tuner:

Pro/E model:

finished prototype:

that took 16 hours in the machine shop and probably more than that in Pro/E, designing and redesigning. Only need to make four more now

Okay, now I really need to go finish my project

[Sindwiller]

I can only confirm all observations that have been made. Even though most of the concentration problems outside my leisure time (school and stuff) have disappeared since I've stopped playing games excessively - meaning that I use my computer for other stupid stuff apart from gaming mostly -, these problems may sometimes reoccur after sitting in front of the computer for quite a while. Occasionally, I can't even get myself to do something else (except for playing bass maybe) than staring at the display.

As for learning - I'm basically incapable of learning more than 10-15 minutes at once for a subject. Hence why I suck at technical/natural scientific subjects (physics, mathematics, biology), since a) I don't get that stuff and b) I don't invest enough time for them. I, on the other hand, have no problem with languages or anything other liberal arts related, as I can invest 5-6x 10 minutes in a week per subject without a hassle. I'm a lazy person if you look at it like that, and I'd stick to the stuff I'm good at if I could (languages, music, stuff like that) But then again, you're all in college respectively university and you have to cope with much more complicated and deep stuff, so I shouldn't even say anything.

[tofu]

I agree with a lot of the above I've had trouble mapping even when I felt like mapping. Part of it is to do with my shitty, uncomfortable environment atm but the other part has to do with forums, reddit, videosift etc. But when I'm working fulltime I dont tend to have the same issues... One thing I can't agree with more however:

-do physical exercise

-make yourself real food

-i did successfully give irc use the boot

-i deleted all my firefox bookmarks for news sites except for penny arcade and kotaku

-i only have 2 forums i check mapcore and polycount (cut down form like 10)

-i close miranda when i do mapping work

-i never have a physical phone hooked in

-my cellphone is never on when i am not on the road and its always set to vibration alert

Fuck yes!!

Man it shits me how often folks in our industry eat shit and drink shit :/ Shits me even more when the only crap on supply in the office is exactly that: shit drinks and shit food. I think a lot of games companies could benefit by hosting a few healthy eating/living presentations or at least some basic cooking shows Kinda depressing to see matured men have nfi how to cook themselves an omelet.

[dux]

I second the real food. Junk food is the worst, absolute worst. If you are partial to eating total shit I suggest you stop right now. Eat healthy. Proper meat, chicken breast, greens, fruit, pasta, rice, nuts, water, fruit juice. You'll feel so much better for it and you'll concentrate a whole lot better if you eat good food and cut out the shit.

And

DO PHYSICAL EXERCISE WITH HEALTHY EATING AND YOU WILL DOMINATE THE WORLD. Seriously. You will feel invincible.

[Taylor]

I did the same, and to be honest I still spend far too much time on forums. IRC is a giant waste of time and while there are good moments it’s 49% tedious dullness and 50% nothing at all. If you’re playing games like Diablo or WoW you seriously need to bop those on the head, accumulatively I’ve probably lost half a year to those goddamn games. While I always dabble in the new releases and blitz them over the weekend, I’d be a poor game designer if I didn’t. However, the only games I replay these days are shmups and fighters, because they require no dedication at all (and they’re arcade genres so you can meet, y’know, real people!). I can do idle work with music on but anything that requires me to think absolutely needs silence, at work I sometimes but my head phones on without any music on just for the noise cancellation.

What feeds procrastination is routine, you’re browsing internet forums because it’s what you usually do, you’re not reading your college material because it’s something new and alien – not necessarily because you enjoy one and don’t enjoy the other. Get out of the routine and you’ve solved your problem, eating healthy* is good because you can experiment with your food, going out to random events is going to be good too. And you’ll find your days are longer and you’re enjoying yourself more as a direct result.

* I can't really point a finger here though, as it's been noticed what I eat for breakfast (which comes in a paper bag and I drop on my sketch book) has managed to go through a layer of card with greese.