Day 23 - That damn screen

I always tell people that I haven’t got any friends because sometimes my life feels like that but it isn’t true. It’s true that there is no one really who lives in Prague who I can phone up and go for a drink with at a moment’s notice. So I guess what I mean is I haven’t got any drinking buddies, but I have got friends. I’ve got lots of lovely, wonderful friends and the wonder of the internet has meant that although my friends are far flung they are always in my pocket and this genuinely makes me happy. 

My problem is that maybe I have taken the connectivity too far. Because of my smart phone, my two tablets (yes two tablets) and my computer I am rarely off Facebook, Twitter and the like. I can check it at a drop of a hat and it seems I am forever dropping my hat. As a writer, (yes I do call myself a writer,) I love to observe the world, see faces, smiles, breasts etc that I can wax lyrical about in prose or poetry. But what do I do when I am out and about on a tram or in a café. Do I observe the world around me making mental notes for later? No, of course not. I sit cooped up over a screen.

A procession of elephants could go by and I would have no clue cos I am checking to see if anyone else went to my blog since the last time I checked, (which was 3 minutes ago in case you are wondering and no no one else visited it).

There could be friends waving at me, women giving me the glad eye, smurfs offering me money and I’d be none the wiser because I am looking for the little red dot on Facebook, which if it wasn’t there 30 seconds ago is not likely to be there now and even if it is my response can more than likely wait. 

When my hot water was off the other day I thanked a god I don’t believe in that it wasn’t the wifi, you can’t just boil some kettles and run yourself a connection. I could imagine living without water but without wifi? The internet is like heroin for the eyes and I would have hated the enforced cold turkey.

I love the wonders of the internet and the connectivity it affords us. (After all I would be a writer with no readers if it weren’t for the power of blogs.) But I do need to remind myself that from time to time I should get my head up from my screen and let the world make me grumpy.